Land of Milk and Honey
by Nine1
Summary: Daisuke is a thief who makes a big mistake. Now on the run, he's joined by Takeru, the exotic rebel, and Ken, a witch seeking paradise; he meets a cast of unusual people and learns a few lessons along the way. AU, future shounen-ai/shoujo-ai/het.
1. Who are you, again?

A/N: Starting a new fic. I promised myself I wouldn't until Outside and Nihilistic were done, but Nihilistic only needs about two more chapters, and I'm getting restless with all of these plotbunnies running around in my head, plus I've been wanting to start a humor fic for a long time. I'm tired of having to write nothing but angst for my chaptered stories. It's getting me down. Here's a nice break from all of the angst. I have no idea how long this is going to be...but it's going to be quite the odd fic. All of the Digidestined will eventually make an appearance, though it's going to center around the journeys of Daisuke, Takeru, and Ken. It's only Daisuke and Takeru in this chapter...but don't worry, Ken will show up in the next one. I'll let you all start reading this, then.

By the way, my birthday is coming up on the 20th. Eight more days, hooray! ^-^'

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon or any of the characters. 

After Daisuke had tripped and fallen a third time, he groaned, lying on the floor, and wondered how he managed to get into these messes. It wasn't his fault the wretched house had caught on fire. People shouldn't leave so many damned candles lying about out in the open in small, carpeted rooms with curtains drooping all over the floor and clothes lying about the place. Of course, he was the one that had thrown the clothes everywhere, and he had knocked the candle over onto the floor in the first place, but he still didn't blame himself for the fire resulting from his blunder.

Said blunder had caused quite a disturbance in the small village, leading to Daisuke's flight into the forest in a feeble attempt to escape the law, which was where he now lay, on the forest floor, moaning about ill fortune. 

Daisuke was a thief. He was usually very careful during his jobs, but the lack of anything very valuable to snatch at the last house had been frustrating to the redhead, causing him to wreak havoc upon the guest bedroom of a two-bedroom house where an old widow dwelled. He had accidentally knocked a candle over, which had set fire to the nearby window curtain. He had high-tailed it out of the house, though not very gracefully, as the frightened old woman had bumped into him in the hallway and had received a very clear sight of his face, as he had always been partial to not wearing any masks, convinced that his goggles over his eyes were concealment enough for his face. The woman had surely recognized him; they had spoken to one another oftentimes when seeing each other in the village marketplace. She knew his family, and she had surely reported him to the authorities. This thought had caused him to flee in fear for his life into the unfamiliar woods, which he was now stumbling through, completely lost and wishing he had stuck to the blacksmith job his father had tried to pawn off onto him. 

Daisuke rose again to his feet, rubbing his hands against his pants to remove the dirt and filth, and looked around at his surroundings. Trees stretched out on all sides, all identical to his inexperienced eyes. He had no idea which direction he had come from, since he had been panicked when he first stepped foot into the forest, blindly running and darting around trees in no set direction at all. He concluded that he was quite lost, and he decided to continue on his current path through the foreign foliage, figuring he would happen upon some kind of settlement if he walked for long enough in a straight path. 

He soon came upon a creek of a sort and immediately fell to his knees before it, bending his head to lap up the clear water. As he drank from it, he heard a distant lapping sound from off to his right, and he slowly turned his head to check what it was. He saw that a deer was drinking water much in the same manner as he was, and it didn't seem to be frightened by his presence. 

He remained still, curiously watching the deer as it finished drinking and stood for a few seconds, basking in the sunlight filtering in through the canopy of leaves overhead. It suddenly turned and scampered off into the woods, and Daisuke, not knowing what else to do, followed it as quietly as he could manage.

The deer led him to a clearing where there stood a giant tree in the center, with a bed of leaves surrounding its large, round trunk. Daisuke walked up to it, staring up into its highest treetops in wonderment, having to shield his eyes from the strain of staring up into such bright light. He could not place what type of tree it was. In fact, he doubted he had ever seen a tree like it. It was not like the rest of the trees he had been walking through, and seemed to be the only one around: a small forest all on its own. 

As he made his way around the base of the tree, he noticed something lying on the ground upon the bed of leaves. He was shocked to find a boy, looking to be around his age, having what Daisuke guessed to be a midday nap. The boy struck Daisuke as beautiful and delicate all at once, and he could not help but pause and stare down at him. 

Suddenly, the boy opened his eyes and stared up at Daisuke, and Daisuke got the impression of staring into twin oceans of the deepest and most precious sapphire blue. He admired them for all but a second until the boy leapt to his feet, grabbing a rock in his hand on the way up and holding it above his head. Daisuke held his arms up, crying out and stumbling back awkwardly. The boy narrowed his eyes in a suspicious glare, gripping the rock threateningly in his fist and moving into some sort of weird stance. 

"I'm not gonna hurt you!" Daisuke cried, holding his hands out to block any incoming rocks thrown at him. 

The boy shook his golden blonde hair out of his eyes and began circling Daisuke, still clutching the rock for his own protection, inspecting him. While the boy examined him, Daisuke took the opportunity to study his clothing and features. 

He had golden hair that looked bleached wheat blonde under direct sunlight. He was thin, but Daisuke could tell from the subtle shaping of his upper arms that the boy was strong and packed hidden muscle underneath that smooth, pale skin. He was shirtless, seeming to wear only the red and brown cloth skirt tied around his waist and falling to just above his ankles. He had a strange bracelet worn around his right ankle that seemed to be made from stringing dark pink blossoms on a vine and wrapping it around the ankle three or four times. The boy had leaves stuck in his soft hair from sleeping in them, and Daisuke thought he saw what seemed like a scar from a burn just above his left collarbone. The features that stuck out the most to Daisuke's eyes were the intricate, light brown Henna-tattoo-like drawings covering the backs of both of the boy's hands. 

The boy finished circling Daisuke and stood up straight again, losing the threatening pose and tilting his head slightly, as if asking Daisuke who he was. 

"I'm not going to hurt you," Daisuke repeated. "I'm harmless."

The boy remained standing still, looking Daisuke up and down, and suddenly seemed to lose interest in him, turning and walking through the part of the clearing Daisuke had just entered minutes before. Daisuke watched as the deer he had followed in pranced after the boy. He shook himself and chased after him.

"Hey, wait! I got lost. Maybe you can help me find my way out of here?"

The boy didn't seem to take any notice of Daisuke's following him and crouched near the creek Daisuke had drunk from before. He cupped his hands under the water and brought them up to his face, sipping delicately from the small pool in his palms. 

"Can you help me?" Daisuke asked, crouching down next to him. 

The boy glanced at him and pouted his lips slightly. Daisuke raised an eyebrow, trying to figure out what that meant. He came to a realization. 

"Do you understand English?"

The boy looked up at him, blinked, and then stood up, looking around at the surrounding forest, as if trying to remember where he was going. Daisuke stood up as well, trying to figure out how he was supposed to communicate his message to the boy with the language barrier.

He tapped the boy on the shoulder and the blonde slowly turned to look at him, seeming almost exasperated with him. 

Daisuke began moving his hands around, trying to illustrate his message. 

"I," he began, pointing to himself, "am lost." He held his arms out to the side. "Can you," he pointed to the blonde, "help me," he pointed to himself again, "find the way out of here?" He gestured to the forest around him. 

The boy narrowed his eyes and walked up to him, so that their faces were close to each other. He reached a hand up and jabbed Daisuke in the chest with his finger.

"I can hear you, asshole. I'm not deaf."

Daisuke's jaw dropped open as the boy turned and began walking off in the opposite direction. The deer rose from where it had been resting on the bank of the creek and began trotting at his side. Daisuke began walking quickly to catch up to the blonde.

"You speak English?"

The blonde snorted. "Yeah."

"Why didn't you say so?"

"You woke me up from my nice afternoon nap. I wanted to torture you a bit and let you frustrate yourself."

Daisuke narrowed his eyes, mouth falling open to form a look of indignation. 

"Hey, that wasn't very nice of you!"

The blonde rolled his eyes and began looking from side to side, as if trying to figure out which way he was supposed to go next. He switched directions and began walking down the path to the right. Daisuke stayed right on his heels.

"What's your name, anyways?"

"What's yours?" the boy asked casually over his shoulder.

"Motomiya Daisuke," Daisuke replied easily. 

"Call me Takeru," the blonde responded, taking another right down an even clearer path. 

Daisuke looked down the path and noticed that the trees thinned out to reveal what seemed like a small Indian village. Daisuke guessed that the Henna and the odd garb Takeru wore were the custom clothing for this tribe. The deer ran ahead of them and pranced to a part of the forest near a small hut, where it joined several other deer playing about in the wooded area. 

Daisuke followed Takeru into the heart of the village, where many people were gathered around a small raised square, talking amongst one another. There were people removing chairs from on top of the raised area and someone was cleaning it off with a broom. Takeru walked up to a woman with light brown hair and she turned to greet him. They said a few words in a language Daisuke didn't understand, but then they began talking in English. 

"Were you sleeping again?"

"Of course."

"I told you not to leave the village today. You missed the entire ceremony!"

"Oh, damn," Takeru mumbled. "And I was looking forward to it, too."

The woman gave him a reproachful look. "Now, Takeru, I know these ceremonies bore you, but you must still attend them. As a member of our tribe, you are required to attend all of our ceremonies. You know that."

"Yeah, sorry," he said insincerely. He glanced over his shoulder at Daisuke. "I've forgotten something in the hut. May I go get it?"

"Yes, but don't be long. The feast should be starting soon."

Takeru turned and began running off. He paused once to look back at Daisuke, tilting his head as if indicating for him to follow, and then continued running. Daisuke hurried after him. 

Takeru paused in front of the door to a hut, looked back towards the square, and then slipped around the side of the hut. Daisuke followed after making sure no one was looking their way. Takeru was fishing something out from behind a nearby tree. As Daisuke walked up to him, he heard Takeru hissing in his native language.

"I can't stand it anymore," Takeru began in English. "I don't want to stay here anymore. I want to be able to explore and do things on my own, instead of taking orders from everyone in the tribe whom are superior to me. I can't take another damned ceremony. They have one for _everything_. They have a ceremony if it rains a little, a ceremony if a baby is born, a ceremony if two people are wedded, even a stupid ceremony if someone's relative has come to the village to visit." 

"You're running away?" Daisuke questioned, eyeing the sack that Takeru was beginning to slide over his shoulder.

"Yes," Takeru responded, shifting the sack on his bare back. "I don't know where I'm going, but I'm getting as far away from here as I can."

Daisuke paused, looking thoughtful. "You slept in the forest on purpose, didn't you? You meant to sleep in long enough to miss the ceremony."

"Of course I did," Takeru said. "There was no way I was attending another one of those stupid things. All I do is stand around for an hour while someone talks about the same thing using the same words over and over, clap, eat at the feast, and then go home."

"Who was that woman?" Daisuke asked, following as Takeru began slipping through the trees.

"My mother."

"Where's your father?"

"Gone," Takeru replied bitterly. "He got the right idea and left the village a long time ago, not long after I was born. Everyone in the village started talking nasty about him, saying he was no good, but I've always wanted to go and find him." 

"Is that where you're off to now?"

"I'm going to go and find myself a new life," Takeru said over his shoulder, lifting a branch over his head to pass under it. "If I happen to see him along the way, I guess I could stop for a little chat and do some catching up."

Daisuke ducked to avoid getting hit by the branch as Takeru let go and it swung back. "I'm traveling, too."

"Where are you going?"  


"To a place far, far away, where no one knows my name or recognizes me."

"Well, that's odd. Apparently, we're going to the same place."

Daisuke narrowly ducked under another branch and then sighed in relief when he found they were entering another clearing. 

"So does that mean you don't mind if I go with you?"

Takeru stopped and turned to look at him. Daisuke nearly tripped over his feet trying not to ram into Takeru and watched as Takeru looked him over for the third time that day.

"Sure, but you'll have to keep up with me. If you can't, then I'm afraid you're on your own, but if you want to tag along, I'll let you, as long as you stay out of my way."

Daisuke brightened. "Great! Then I guess it's going to be you and me, buddy."

Takeru turned back around, rolling his eyes. "Wonderful."

They continued walking on, neither of them knowing what they were getting themselves into, but neither of them caring much right at that moment.

"Watch that branch."

"Ow. You did that on purpose."

"Did not."

"Liar."


	2. And now we have a witch?

A/N: Two chapters in one day. My, my, aren't you lucky? Eh, this story idea is just too cute. I couldn't resist continuing immediately. I think I may have to fix the description...it was rather long...I should probably just use keywords and say that the details are on my profile. Anyways, in this chapter, they meet Ken. That's...basically it. Er, here there be shounen-ai. Kenkeru, to be exact. And hints of Daiken. I think that's all I need to say. I won't be including the disclaimer for this and the following chapters, since it's in the first chapter. Well, enjoy. 

"Takeru, I'm hungry! Can we find some more of those yummy berries you showed me?"

"We've stopped to eat five times already! How can you possibly still be hungry?"

Takeru cast the shorter boy an irritated glare, clenching his teeth, but Daisuke seemed oblivious to the look. He was already looking for berry patches. 

"Are these the ones?"

Takeru saw Daisuke poking around at a bush that was full of poisonous berries. He toyed with the idea of telling Daisuke they were edible just to get the redhead out of his hair, but his conscience kicked in and he sighed.

"No, those are poisonous. Look, these over here, these are the ones."

Takeru sat down on the floor as he watched Daisuke yank berries off of the bush, plopping them all into his mouth without even taking time to swallow the ones already inside. He was about to make a sarcastic remark about Daisuke's eating habits when they heard a twig snap loudly nearby. Both spun around, Daisuke with wide, confused eyes, and Takeru with narrowed, alert eyes. Takeru leapt to his feet and began inching towards the bushes that were rustling. Just as he was about to swipe at the branch concealing whatever was behind it, Daisuke leapt out from behind him with a wild cry, tackling the bush. Takeru heard a grunting sound and he sighed loudly as the sounds of a scuffle escaped from the shaking bushes. 

Soon, Daisuke was thrown out of the bushes, pummeling into Takeru and knocked both of them over. Takeru roughly shoved Daisuke off of him and rolled to his feet, ready to attack the person emerging from the bushes. His eyes widened and he straightened up as he watched a tall boy with long indigo hair step out from behind it, pulling twigs and leaves out from his hair. 

"I thought I heard your voice," the newcomer grumbled, brushing himself off.

"Ken?!" Takeru asked incredulously, stepping forward to help the boy with his hair.

Ken laughed and smiled at Takeru. "Long time no see, huh?"

Daisuke stared up at them from where he lay sprawled on the ground, raising his eyebrows. "You know each other?"

"Gosh, Ken, I missed you," Takeru said softly, hugging the taller boy. 

Ken laughed and hugged him back. "Same here. I was going to visit you soon, really, I was."

"Yeah, sure you were," Takeru replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"I was!" Ken cried indignantly, though still smiling.

Daisuke stood and brushed himself off, giving Ken a good look-over. Ken had shoulder-length indigo hair, a black shirt, and black pants. He had black nail polish and black socks, and on his feet, he wore black, pointy shoes. Daisuke raised an eyebrow at the long black coat that looked like some sort of a dress with the way it puffed out under the gold belt, and the odd, pointy black hat Ken wore on his head with a gold buckle in the center. He may have been dressed oddly, but Daisuke found Ken amazingly attractive. His soft, pouty lips, long eyelashes, delicate bone structure, and pale, flawless skin made him look rather feminine, which was the only type of boy he was ever attracted to. Takeru looked slightly girly, but he still had a slight build and the fact that he walked around half-naked immediately gave away the fact that he was definitely male. 

He was starting to get a bit jealous of the way Takeru and Ken still hadn't let each other go, and were talking animatedly about what had happened to them the past few months. 

He poked Takeru's back.

"Hey, Takeru, aren't you going to introduce me to your hot friend?"

Takeru gave him a dry look and turned back to Ken, lifting a hand to point at Daisuke.

"This is Daisuke. He found me and won't stop following me. Could you please hex him?"

Ken laughed. "I don't hex people, Takeru. Nice to meet you, Daisuke."

Daisuke heartily shook Ken's hand. "Nice to meet you, too, Ken. May I add that your dress looks wonderful on you?"

Ken looked down at himself, grinning. "Well, it's not exactly a dress...but thank you for the compliment anyways."

Takeru glared at Daisuke and stepped to the side to shove him out of the way. He beamed at Ken. "So where are you going now?"

"I'm off to find the land of milk and honey," Ken replied, smiling in that charming way of his.

"What?"

"You know, paradise."

Takeru smirked. "Well, you always have wanted to find your paradise. Since I have nowhere else to go, would you mind if I accompanied you? I wouldn't mind finding paradise."

"Of course I wouldn't mind! I'd love to have you along! I've missed your company dearly."

"And I've missed yours," Takeru replied, smiling warmly.

"Don't forget about me! I'm still here, you know!" Daisuke informed Takeru, poking him again. 

Takeru whirled around and whacked Daisuke's hand away. "Quit touching me!"

"You can come, too," Ken told Daisuke.

Daisuke turned and stuck his tongue out at Takeru. Takeru slapped his arm and sighed in frustration, rubbing his forehead. 

"Are you sure about that?" he asked Ken wearily.

"Daisuke can come along if he wants to," Ken said firmly, giving the shortest of the three a sincere smile.

"I do want to," Daisuke replied, grinning happily.

"Great," Takeru grumbled.

~ ~ ~ ~  


"So, Ken, how do you know Takeru?"

The three travelers had found their way out of the forest and were walking down a dirt road, heading towards the next town or village. They had decided to find a place to stay for the night and then make plans on where to go and what to do the next morning. 

"I hung around his village for about five months," Ken told Daisuke. "For the past few years I've been visiting different villages, gathering information about the country and the world. I'm on a search for paradise, you see. I want to find a place I can truly call home for the rest of my life. I ran away from home because I didn't want to be a part of my family anymore." 

"Why not?"

"They're witches that practice the art of black magic. I don't want to use my magic for evil things. I wanted to practice white magic, but my family strongly disapproved. I decided I needed to get away to another place if I didn't want to either conform to their ways and become an evil witch or get killed for not wanting to follow in their footsteps."

"They really would do that to you?"

"If they fail to bring me up as a witch who is excellent in the ways of black magic, they can simply have another child, and they would have no use for me. They don't form any attachments to offspring in my old town, so, just in case they screw up with a kid, they can kill him or her and move on."

"That seems a bit harsh..."

"Not to them. They were just brought up thinking that way. So, anyways, I ran away, and I'm looking for my own little paradise. I dropped by Takeru's village about a year ago, and I ended up staying longer than I'd planned to..."

"Why?"

Ken grinned and pointed at Takeru. "It was his fault."

Takeru laughed to himself. "It was not, you liar. It was totally your fault. You didn't _have_ to stay."

Ken turned back to Daisuke to explain. "Normally I don't befriend anyone in any of the villages I go to, so I don't have a reason to stay there any longer than a month or two, but Takeru here insisted on becoming my friend-"

"You're the one that came to me, professing undying love for me-"

"-and I ended up staying around so I could continue to be with him. Eventually, I realized that my family could have easily tracked me down in that amount of time, and since my village isn't too far from his, I decided I needed to move on. I left during the night, without telling Takeru, because I knew if I had to go and say goodbye to him, I'd never be able to take one step away from him. After I was gone for about a month I wrote him a letter telling him I was alright and sent it with a man that was going to Takeru's village."

"Okay, backtrack a little," Daisuke said, holding his hands up. "Professing undying love for him?"

"Yeah, I sort of...did something I shouldn't."

Ken gave Takeru a guilty grin and Takeru smiled back in a much more gentle way than Daisuke had ever thought Takeru _could_ smile.

"You fell in love with him," Daisuke facefaulted. He guessed he didn't have a chance with Ken after all.

"That's basically it, yes," Ken said, rubbing his cheek with a finger as he blushed slightly.

"That was another of the main reasons I was leaving the village," Takeru told Daisuke. "I wanted to go and find Ken. I guess I found him."  


"I guess you did," Ken said, turning to grin at him, "but didn't I tell you specifically _not_ to come looking for me?"

"Ken, I was _dying_ there," Takeru told him. "Besides, you were taking too long to come back."

"Well, I was on my way back when Daisuke tackled me," Ken said dryly.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that, Ken," Daisuke said, grinning sheepishly.

"Not a problem. You helped me find Takeru. If you hadn't been with him, I'd have never found him. He's so at home in the forest that his footsteps make virtually no sound no matter what he's stepping on. Since you were annoying him, he was off-guard and talking rather loudly, and I was able to recognize his voice and trace it over to where you two were."

"See? You're going to get us killed," Takeru told Daisuke.

Daisuke narrowed his eyes. "Didn't he say _you_ were talking loudly and off-guard?"

"I think we're getting to the next village," Ken said slowly, pointing forward. 

Takeru and Daisuke looked forward and all three of them stopped in their tracks. 

A couple of miles ahead of them, they saw what looked like dark smoke clouds reaching up towards the darkening sky. 


	3. What is with all of the nakedness?

Author's Note: Well, here we have the third chapter in the second day of even thinking this plot up. I've impressed myself. Anyways, responding to a few reviews, yes, there is Kenkeru...but just because Ken and Takeru claim to be "in love", that doesn't mean Daisuke won't find a way to wedge himself in between them somehow. **Grins and waggles her eyebrows** I'm sure you know what that means. Anyways, in this chapter we have hintings at Taito (Taito fans rejoice at this point), and two new people come into the story. And, yes, the chapters are meant to be this short. 

"Well, at least we'll be able to stop walking. My legs are getting so tired," Daisuke complained, reaching down to rub at his thighs. 

"You're even weaker than I took you for," Takeru told him with an wicked grin. "And I didn't have any high expectations for you whatsoever in the first place."

Daisuke turned to him, eyes narrowed. "I'd appreciate it if you would stop making snide comments about me to my face. I don't recall ever doing anything to you to deserve such treatment."

"He's right, Takeru," Ken said, frowning from where he crouched atop a rock, peering at the village to try and see what kind of village it was. "You've been nothing but nasty to him for the entire length of the time we've spent together, and he hasn't done a thing to you to deserve it. Why are you so relentless in picking on him?"

Takeru blushed a bit and crossed his arms, sputtering, "Because...he's stupid!"

Daisuke cringed and Ken sighed, shaking his head, leaping off of the rock. 

"Never mind," Ken said. "Let's get going. We need to get there before dark if we want to sleep in an actual bed tonight."

They started off at a somewhat quick pace, all of them thinking about their aching, empty bellies and warm, soft beds. They hadn't walked more than twenty steps when it happened. 

Daisuke looked off to the side after hearing a slight rustling in the brush and his eyes widened when he noticed something flying their way. 

"Watch out!" he shrieked, shoving Takeru forward and ducking his own head. Takeru gave a startled yelp and fell forward as something whizzed by his head and lodged itself in a nearby tree. The three turned with wide eyes to stare at the knife imbedded in the tree's trunk. 

They heard a strange call from the right and turned to watch a girl fly out from seemingly nowhere and tackle Takeru. Takeru fell back down with a grunt. Daisuke and Ken merely stared, not knowing whether to laugh or try to save their friend from this newcomer. 

The girl sat up on Takeru's stomach, grinning down at him in a somewhat crazed manner.

"Hah, I've found you! I win the game, Matt!"

She paused, inspecting the confused blonde underneath her, and her eyebrows lifted. 

"You're not Matt."

"No, sorry," Takeru said slowly. "Will you please get off now?"

The girl rose to her feet, blushing and shifting from one foot to the other. "Sorry. I mistook you for my friend. We're playing a game."

Ken eyed the knife in the tree. "A game," he repeated doubtfully.

Daisuke hadn't stopped staring at the girl's body. "Why are you naked?"

"Why are you wearing clothes?" she shot back, not missing a beat.

"Well, because...you're supposed to," Daisuke replied uncertainly.

"Who says?" she asked, tossing her long violet hair back over her shoulder so it fell about her waist. 

Daisuke's mouth dropped open slightly at the now much more exposed skin. Needless to say, he didn't have an answer for her. 

Takeru, not at all unaccustomed to seeing topless women, since the women of his tribe walked about in broad daylight wearing nothing but their skirts on a regular basis, was unaffected by the girl's nakedness. Ken, having been in Takeru's village for five or so months, wasn't fazed either.

"What is your name?" Ken asked.

"They gave me the name Miyako in the village. They also call me the Wild Huntress of the Wolf-people," the violet-haired young woman responded easily. "What are your names?"

"I'm Ken, the one you knocked over is Takeru, and the gawking one is Daisuke," Ken said, pointing to each of them in turn. 

"Where is your friend?" Takeru asked, curious to see this person he seemed to resemble.

Miyako looked about herself, hands on her curvy hips, pouting. 

"Where _is_ Matt?" she asked herself. "I wish I hadn't forgotten those things Hikari-chan made for me. They make it much easier to see."

"Glasses?" Daisuke asked. 

"I think she called them something like that," Miyako responded. 

"Who's Hikari?" Takeru asked, finished brushing himself off and now walking around to inspect the forest around them.

Miyako suddenly turned to the side, seeming distracted. She began sniffing at the air, walking to a rock and climbing it, nose in the air. She inhaled the air for a while longer and then peered into the surrounding woods. 

"I think Matt's somewhere nearby. You might want to duck or sit down."

Takeru immediately sat on the floor, not wanting another incident with knives flying towards his head. Ken and Daisuke soon followed his example. Miyako remained on top of the rock, looking around herself.

"Hikari's the Indian princess that belongs to that village over there," the huntress told them, waving her hand towards the village they'd been traveling to. 

"So it's an Indian village?" Ken asked, going back in his mind over every Indian village he'd ever been to, trying to remember if he'd been to this one before. 

Miyako nodded. "Yeah. Hikari is cool, but the chief is a total asshole." Her face grew dark. "I don't like him very much, and he doesn't like me either. He doesn't want Hikari to hang around me...thinks I'm a bad influence. And the fact that I hang around Yamato every day, all day, and pretty much live with him doesn't make me a very likable person to him, either."

"Why is that?"

"Well, let's just say the chief has a...thing for our dear Prince of Wolves."

"Okay, I'm assuming 'Yamato' and 'Prince of Wolves' are both referring to Matt?"

"Yeah. Yamato is his real name, and Prince of Wolves is the name the Indians use for him. I call him Matt because he's my best friend. He's sort of like my older brother." Miyako's face grew sad with the last sentence. 

Ken studied her and appeared to be puzzling over something about the way she'd been speaking of Matt. 

Just then, Miyako leapt from the rock to the floor with a strange growling noise and two knives whizzed through the air, piercing the tree that already held one knife. 

A boy broke through the branches of a tree and dropped onto the rock she'd just abandoned. He looked older than all of them, and for a moment, Daisuke had the feeling he was staring at an older version of Takeru. The boy straightened himself and stared down at the three other boys, eyes narrowed. 

"Who are you?" he questioned, his voice colder than any Daisuke had ever heard before. 

Miyako stood up next to the rock and peered up at him with a playful grin. "They're my new friends. Don't worry, they're harmless."

The tall blonde narrowed his eyes and stepped off of the rock, falling soundlessly onto the forest floor. Daisuke couldn't help but feel inferior to this young man, curling into himself unconsciously. Takeru and Ken had immediately risen to their feet, readying themselves for any trouble. 

"Boys, meet the Prince of Wolves," Miyako said with a smirk, waving her hand towards Yamato in a grand gesture. 

Yamato was nude except for the wolf skin on his back. He wore a wolf's skin over his head and his back, like a cape of sorts. He stepped over to them and inspected the three in turn. 

"You," he said, stopping before Takeru and lifting a finger to point square in the center of the younger's chest. 

"Yes?" Takeru asked, raising an eyebrow coolly. 

"What tribe have you come from?"

Takeru said the name of his tribe in his own native tongue, though Daisuke heard only gibberish. Yamato's eyes widened in the slightest measure, but his face remained impassive. He glanced down at Takeru's arms and eyed the Henna-like tattoos covering his hands. He turned and walked back to the rock. He stepped onto it easily and turned around to perch on it, sitting back on his haunches and looking like a king sitting up straight in his throne.

"State your names and your business here in my forest," Yamato ordered quietly, though a small shiver ran through Daisuke at hearing Yamato's regal voice.

"My name is Ken," Ken responded automatically.

"Takeru."

"Daisuke."

"We're journeying to yonder village in search of shelter," Ken said, tilting his head in the direction of the village. 

Yamato turned his head to glance in the direction of the village and smiled faintly, an emotion Ken couldn't place surfacing in his eyes and then immediately sinking again in the deep pools. 

"Do you need an escort? I could take you and introduce you. I could get you the best hut for your stay there," Yamato offered.

Ken felt surprised at the generous offer and quickly nodded his head. "Yes, that would be excellent."

Takeru shot him a dirty look and returned his gaze to the floor, eyes blazing, fists clenching at his sides. 

Yamato nodded and once again stepped off of the rock. He began walking forward, pausing to turn to Miyako. 

"Do you want to join us, Miyako-chan?"

"Do you really have to ask?" she asked, grinning, and trotted to join Yamato at the head of the line. Ken followed soon after, Daisuke walked behind him, and Takeru brought up the rear, eyes darkening with every step. 


	4. May I have this dance?

A/N: Fourth chapter, is it? So...this story is about to get even more complicated, but the only sign of that in this chapter is the last part, where Koushirou comes in. Don't let the last part confuse you, you'll see what that's all about soon enough. Anyways, have fun reading the next installment.

They got to the village not long after meeting the Prince and the Huntress. After taking so many trips over there, both of them had developed knowledge on the easiest routes to take in order to get to the village. Daisuke continually looked around himself at the many huts surrounding what seemed to be the town square. Yamato led them straight up to what seemed to be the largest hut of them all. 

He threw open the flap serving as a door at the front of the hut and led them inside. Daisuke saw that there was a boy that didn't look much older than Yamato sitting at the head of a table where a few people seemed to be having dinner. 

The boy looked up and stared at Yamato, his eyes flickering with an emotion Daisuke couldn't place. Almost immediately, the flicker was gone, and the boy stood up, along with the girl sitting to the right of him. 

"Miyako-chan!" the brown-haired girl called out, running from her place at the table to Miyako and clasping the girl's hands in her own. "We haven't seen you in so long! You must bring your friends to the table and have dinner with us. We're having a small feast before the festivities begin tonight."

"Festivities?" Miyako asked, glancing up at the ceiling. "Oh, I forgot! You're having that party thing tonight." She turned and smiled at the three young boys. "Guys, this is Princess Hikari. She's the princess of this tribe. They call her Light-Bringer here."

Miyako introduced each one of them as Yamato went to go talk to the brunette boy that had stood.

Takeru and Ken shook hands with Hikari, smiling and saying the usual greetings, but Daisuke stepped forward and took Hikari's hand in his, bending down to kiss the back of it.

"I've never seen a more beautiful Indian princess, Light-Bringer. I can see why they named you that. You bring the most magnificent light to the room."

Hikari blushed and giggled, pulling her hand away. "Thank you, Daisuke-kun."

The boy that had been talking to Yamato, who they all assumed was the chief, immediately strode over and stood glaring down at Daisuke, who made a small sound in the back of his throat and peered up at the taller boy, trying to hide his fear. 

"Nobody touches my sister without my permission," the boy growled. "Don't you know it's rude to grab a princess's hand like that?"

"Oh, Taichi," Hikari said, smiling, "you're being overprotective again."

Taichi frowned at his sister for a few seconds, but then Yamato put his arm around his shoulders and his frown disappeared. Taichi turned to look up at Yamato, his eyes going soft, and then he turned and began walking back to the table, Yamato following close. Daisuke observed their behavior and frowned, trying to figure out what that had been about. 

"Yamato is the only one that can pacify my brother," Hikari giggled. "It's like he has some secret power over him. Normally he doesn't let anybody push him around, but for some reason, he actually enjoys it when Yamato does. They pretend to argue and fight all the time."

"Weird. Why would anybody show love for someone by fighting with them?" Ken pondered.

They heard a strange "eep"ing sound from somewhere in the room and they all paused and looked around for the source. Ken was the only one to notice the blushing, wincing blonde at his side.

"Love?" Daisuke asked, his eyes going wide. He turned his face to watch Taichi and Yamato at the table. He suddenly understood what had confused him about the exchange between the two older boys.

He turned to look at Takeru. Takeru was blushing and looking down at the floor, frowning. Daisuke raised an eyebrow.

"Well, let's go eat then," Miyako said happily, walking with Hikari back to the table to find a place to sit. The three boys followed her. 

~ ~ ~ ~

Daisuke stumbled over the dirt and stared in wonder at the activities going on around the bonfire in the clear area just outside of the village. He saw Takeru and Ken sitting on a log near the fire, cuddled up with each other. Ken's arms were around Takeru and he had his chin resting against Takeru's neck. Takeru was resting his head on Ken's shoulder, hands resting over the arms around his waist, smiling with his eyes closed. Daisuke smiled faintly at the couple and turned his eyes away to give them privacy.

He found himself being captivated by the dancers circling the bonfire. They were dancing in a way that he had never seen before. The firelight lit their faces in an almost creepy way, making them seem like dark faces that laugh hauntingly at you in your nightmares. However, their faces were twisted into joyful laughter and smiles. Daisuke found himself smiling as well and he felt like dancing along with them, and when Hikari came to him asking for a dance, he happily accepted after a quick look-around for her older brother. She led him to a less populated area and they danced together for a while, laughing and circling each other but never actually touching. Neither felt like going beyond the occasional flirty look or comment, happy with just dancing around each other. 

Taichi and Yamato watched the happy people around them with serene looks on their faces. They sat underneath the cover of a large tree at the edge of the clearing. Yamato looked around at Taichi from where he sat at his side. 

"Doesn't it ever creep you out? I mean, you have to take care of all these people. You're the chief now. How do you know you can do it?"

"Well, I don't know that I can, but I trust in my own abilities to keep these people safe. I love them all. I've lived with them my entire life. I'm friends with everyone. They all know me and trust me, even though I'm so young and inexperienced. They give me a reason to get up every morning, you know? Being chief isn't really a burden to me...I love my job. It gets tiring sometimes, yes, and I'm sure it will get a lot more tiring later on, but these people are worth it all."

"Do you know how noble all of that sounds?"

Taichi looked over at the blonde. He smiled at the curious, sincere look on Yamato's young face. 

"I don't hear the sound of my own voice the way everyone else does. I wouldn't know."

Yamato frowned in confusion and turned back around to think about Taichi's words. Taichi rested back against the tree trunk, closing his eyes and sighing deeply to himself. 

Daisuke and Hikari had finished dancing and Daisuke had been surprised to have Takeru walk up to him once he was done dancing. 

"Can we talk somewhere? Alone?" Takeru asked, face expressionless. 

"Are you kidding? How do I know you won't try to kill me?" Daisuke asked, raising an eyebrow.

Takeru looked surprised for a few seconds before laughing quietly to himself. "I promise I won't harm you. I just want to tell you something."

"Well, alright," Daisuke sighed. "Lead the way."

Daisuke followed Takeru to a secluded area in the clearing, hoping Takeru was going to keep his promise and that this talk the blonde wanted to have with him would not consist of yelling and fighting. 

He glanced back over his shoulder to look for Ken, wondering where the tall, beautiful witch had gone, but he was nowhere to be seen. 

~ ~ ~ ~

Koushirou grunted from where he sat in his office chair, legs up on top of the desk, feet crossed at the ankle, arms pillowing his head, a newspaper open and laying over his snoring face. His boss stormed into the room and narrowed his eyes at the sight of the sleeping employee. 

"Koushirou!" he yelled.

Koushirou stirred violently, dropping his legs over the side of the desk and standing. "S-sir?"

"I've got a new assignment for you."

His face brightened. "Really? I get a new assignment?" He abruptly straightened himself and his expression changed from excited to business-like. "I'll carry out whatever assignment you give me, sir."

Gennai sighed at his enthusiastic employee and handed him a bunch of papers. Koushirou took them, studying them.

"There's been a kidnapping. Apparently, a local preacher had some type of nervous breakdown and kidnapped a young woman from around here. There's been rumors going around about the two of them that the preacher impregnated this woman, found out about the pregnancy, and, afraid that news would get around and he would be caught, kidnapped her. We have a vague idea as to where he could have gone. I need you to follow him and try to capture him."

"That's so weird," Koushirou said, placing the files down on his desk and looking up with a puzzled face. 

"Pack your bags, Koushirou. You're in for a long journey."

Koushirou's face twisted with joy. "Yay, a journey!" His face immediately became expressionless again. "I will carry out this assignment for you, and I assure you, I will not fail! Failure is unacceptable." He nodded and gathered his coat and a few possessions, ready to go home, pack, and head out on his journey. He walked to the door, turned around, and grinned, holding a hand out. "Sir? Can I borrow some money for food and a place to stay?" 

Gennai sighed and searched his pockets for his wallet. He gave Koushirou a few bills. 

"Don't spend it on anything you don't need," Gennai told him.

"Right," Koushirou nodded, turning and walking out of the police station. 

Gennai watched him leave and sighed, wondering if he'd picked the right person for the job.

Koushirou grinned as he stepped out onto the sidewalk.

"Okay, I can't let the Chief down! I'm going to do my very best. I'll go home, pack, and leave straight away. But first-" he turned around in the other direction, "-I must stock up on doughnuts."


	5. What do you mean you love me?

Jyou sighed, head bent as he once again attempted to light a small fire with the branches and dead leaves he'd gathered at his feet. The match sparked once and went out again, causing Jyou to groan and loudly curse his luck, which in turn caused the body lying nearby to stir slightly. He looked up, alarmed, and looked for the nearest large rock. He picked one out and lifted it onto a knee as he squatted and stared at the woman lifting her head. She shakily raised herself onto an elbow and looked around, eyes unfocused. They settled on him and she blinked several times.

Jyou watched carefully as the woman looked around, taking in her surroundings. They were in a forest clearing, there was a small pile of sticks and leaves on the floor, and there was a tall, blue-haired man she vaguely recognized holding a matchbox in one hand. 

"Where am I?" she asked. She shut her eyes hard. "Ooh, my head."

Jyou stared at her, eyes slightly wide. She wasn't supposed to wake for a long time. The woman pressed her palm against her forehead and moaned. She tried to focus on him again.

"Who are you?"

"Well-"

"Who am I?"

His eyes widened farther. She _definitely _wasn't supposed to have lost any memory. He began searching through the sack at his side for the pill bottle which contained whatever he'd slipped into her drink. Once he found it, he inspected it a while before crying out and dropping it onto the floor. He covered his mouth with both hands, and then the hands slowly slid up to bury themselves in his long, blue hair. 

"I knew those pills hadn't looked the same when I'd taken them out of the bottle."

The woman groaned again, drawing Jyou's attention once more to her barely conscious body.

He crawled over to her. He grasped her hand in both of his and looked into her eyes.

"Listen to me. Your name is Mimi. My name is Jyou. We're...going on vacation together. You're, er, you're my wife." He cringed upon saying it and rolled his eyes. He hadn't meant to blurt all of that out, but now that he'd said it all, he figured it was better than telling her the truth.

"Oh, okay." She smiled hazily, her head lolling to one side. "I still feel sleepy."

Without any more warning, she dropped back down onto the floor with a thumping sound, hand going limp in his, once again unconscious. Jyou blinked down at her, looked up at the sky once, and then crawled back over to the fire. He tried to figure out how to properly light a match, and luckily, this time he was able to produce a flame. He immediately held it to the twigs and leaves and watched as it caught fire and slowly spread. He dropped the matchbox back into his sack and sighed, sitting back and admiring his fire, arms resting over his knees.

"Well, what do I do now?"

~ ~ ~ ~

"Isn't there a reason you dragged me out here?" 

Takeru looked up, looking a little startled. Daisuke stared at him expectantly. Takeru narrowed his eyes and growled.

"I was just getting to that!"

"Okay," Daisuke said, holding his hands up. "I believe you." 

He sighed. Takeru had brought him to a log a fair distance away from the rest of the festivities and people and hadn't said a word since they'd sat down, around five minutes ago. 

"This isn't easy for me to say, you know," Takeru informed him. He frowned and cleared his throat. "I just wanted...to thank you."

Daisuke's eyes widened. Takeru glared at the floor, as if angry with himself for speaking those words. 

"Excuse me?"

"You saved my life. If you hadn't shoved me aside, Miyako's arrow would have driven straight through my head."

Daisuke blinked and remembered earlier that day. Miyako had shot an arrow at Takeru, thinking he was Yamato, and Daisuke had seen it and pushed Takeru out of harm's way at the last minute. 

"Since you saved my life," Takeru continued, looking up from the floor to stare into Daisuke's wide chocolate-brown eyes, "I am now in debt to you. I am going to protect you, from now until you die. I will watch out for you and make sure you are never hurt."

Daisuke's eyes softened as he saw the sincerity in Takeru's deep blue eyes. 

"You don't have to-"

"I have to. I...I want to. I want to save you the way you saved me." Takeru's eyes softened. "Do you know why I pick on you so much, Daisuke?"

"No, but I just figured you hated me for some reason," Daisuke said quietly, frowning to himself.

Takeru smiled genuinely and shook his head. "It is for the same reason that Taichi fights with Yamato."

Daisuke's brow furrowed and his mind recalled an earlier conversation, in which Hikari said that her brother and the Prince of Wolves argued constantly to hide their love for each other, neither knowing the other actually returned the love. He remembered looking at Takeru and seeing him blush when Ken had pointed the fact out with a question. 

His eyes widened and he gawked at the blonde smiling gently at him. 

__

Takeru LOVES me?

"We should get back to the others," Takeru said, standing up and looking back towards the bonfire. "Ken will be wondering about where I am if he's returned already."

"Where did Ken go?" Daisuke asked, breaking out of his shock enough to remember he hadn't seen the witch when they'd left the fire's side.

"Yamato wanted to speak with him alone," Takeru replied, sounding a little bitter. He glanced back over his shoulder at Daisuke, eyes narrowed. "Just because I've confessed to you doesn't mean I'm going to stop picking fights with you."

"I wouldn't expect you to," Daisuke replied, smiling slightly to himself. He stood up and walked to Takeru's side. "Now, let's go find your gorgeous boyfriend."

Takeru whacked him on the arm. "Watch what you say, moron."

~ ~ ~ ~

Ken frowned at the blonde desperately gripping his long black coat's sleeves in his fists, dark blue eyes so emotional it almost scared him. 

"Please, please, _please_, Ken, you have to do this for me."

Yamato was busy trying to convince Ken he should concoct a love potion that would make Taichi fall in love with him (Yamato, not Ken.)

"I told you already, I don't do those types of potions. I...don't do potions at all."

"Can't you cast a love spell on him, at least?"

"Yamato," Ken sighed, "just tell him, will you?"

"I can't do that!" Yamato cried. "I can't risk losing him! He's everything in the world to me. He's all I want, all I need, all I could ever ask for!"

"Okay, okay, I get it," Ken grumbled, yanking his arms out of Yamato's vice-like grip. "I'll...see what I can do."

"Yes, yes, thank you so much," Yamato said, hugging the smaller boy to his chest. 

Ken grunted and fought against Yamato, blushing wildly. Yamato let him go, smiling sheepishly. 

"Sorry."

Ken sighed. "Yamato? At least _consider_ mentioning to him that you feel more deeply for him than he knows?"

"I'll consider it," Yamato promised. 

Ken wished that he could just tell Yamato that Taichi loved him back, so Yamato would be able to confess his feelings to the Indian chief, but his instincts told him to keep the secret to himself for longer and see if perhaps Yamato finally gathered the courage to confront the boy himself. 

Ken stood and brushed himself off, turning and walking back to the bonfire. Yamato followed after composing himself again, and when Ken glanced back at him, he saw the stately, poised Prince of Wolves that he had met that same morning, and if he hadn't just witnessed the blonde breaking down over his immense feelings of love, he would never have guessed Yamato was capable of losing his calm.

He looked forward again and smiled as he approached Takeru and Daisuke, who were both eating the sweet bread the Indians were providing as dessert. Takeru cast frequent glances up towards the redhead with an odd look ever minute or so, and Daisuke was eating just as vivaciously as ever, blissfully unaware of the looks he was receiving from the boy sitting next to him.

Ken plopped down on the other side of Takeru and smiled at him. 

"Enjoying your sweet bread?"

Takeru looked up at him and nodded, holding the food in question up to Ken's face. 

"Want some?"

Ken smiled and reached up to pull a piece off. He placed it in his mouth and chewed delicately. Takeru marveled at how gracefully all of this was done. Ken somehow knew how to be graceful in everything he did, from just walking to the simple task of eating.

"You're so beautiful," Takeru said softly.

Ken blushed lightly and smiled, reaching up to cup Takeru's face in one hand. They leant towards each other, eyes drifting shut, lips puckering in anticipation of the kiss, and then Daisuke stuck his head around Takeru's back.

"Yeah, Ken, you're _very_ beautiful."

Ken's eyes shot open again and he pulled away. Takeru groaned and turned to send a seething glare Daisuke's way. Daisuke ignored it, pouting at Ken.

"Since I said it, too, can I get a kiss as well?"

Ken laughed and leant forward to leave a small kiss on Daisuke's forehead. Daisuke blinked, and then blushed lightly, grinning widely. 

He leapt to his feet and announced to the world, "I got a kiss from Ken!"

Takeru growled loudly and jumped up after him. "That's it, I'm beating you into the dirt."

Ken watched, torn between amusement and worry, as his blonde boyfriend chased Daisuke around the bonfire and the logs surrounding it. He sighed and smiled to himself, resting his chin in his hands. He glanced to the side and saw the forgotten sweet bread laying on the log next to him and, deciding food should not go to waste, especially if it was prepared by someone else, he set to work devouring them both before the other two returned.


	6. What was that random attack on the India...

A/N: Uh...boy, I'm including the whole cast of Digimon aren't I? **Half-expects Ryo to pop up out of nowhere despite his only being shown as a flashback in like one episode** Erm...anyways. I promise this will all make sense someday. ^-^' 

Wallace frowned as he shoved yet another low-hanging branch out of his face, taking care so as not to get scratched up any more than he already was. His body ached with sore exhaustion and he wanted nothing more than to drop onto the floor and sleep the rest of the day away, but his determination would not let him give in just yet, and so he pressed on through the forest. When his best friend had run away from their village in the middle of the night, he had been quick to follow, though he had only been able to follow after he'd found out about his friend's escape, the morning after the incident had happened. The rubble that had once been an old widow's house had been in the process of being cleaned up that day, which took the attention of everyone in the entire village, making it all-too-easy for him to survey the surrounding forest and find the path left by his friend the night before. 

He wiped at his sweaty brow and breathed a sigh of relief when he finally broke out of the forest. His mouth opened wide and he slowly dropped his hand to his side when he saw what he'd just stumbled upon.

"Wow."

Before him stood a very large and expansive not-too-old-looking castle, with a fresh, cut lawn surrounding it for about fifty feet in all directions. He began stumbling forward to the castle, figuring he could just knock on the large wooden doors and ask for a spare room (he was sure there would be plenty) to stay in for the night. 

He trekked over the lawn and began walking around the perimeter of the castle in search of the side with the front entrance and was almost about to give up when he heard voices. He snuck to the edge of the side of the castle and peered around it, where he saw two boys who looked to be only a few years his senior playing what seemed to be croquet. 

"Damnit!" cursed the first boy as his ball missed the semi-circle ring in the ground. "Not again!"

"You seem to be getting a bit rusty with your game, master," observed the second.

Wallace shook his head and stared harder at the two. At first, he thought they were twins. They were the same size, had the same blue-colored unruly mass of hair, had the same pale-colored skin, and seemed to be equally thin. However, one wore glasses and regular clothes: a green sweater over a plain white shirt and blue jeans with white sneakers poking out of the end, and the second wore strange clothes: a cape, a blue and grey jumpsuit, large army-like boots, gloves, and yellow goggles with purple-tinted lenses. He figured one was the normal twin and the other was the eccentric twin. 

His mind suddenly registered the fact that the normal-looking one had called the other "master."

__

What the hell?

"I'm tired of playing this stupid game. I don't want to play anymore." The strange-looking one pouted and threw his croquet mallet down onto the floor, crossing his arms over his chest. 

"As you wish, master. I'll clean this up while you go back into the castle."

Wallace took the opportunity to leap out from behind the castle wall and shout, "Hey!"

The caped boy that had just turned to begin walking back to the castle gave a startled jump and whirled around. The other boy looked up from where he stooped to pick up the croquet mallet the other had just flung upon the ground. 

"Who are you?" the first demanded, pointing a gloved finger towards Wallace. He looked down at the second and asked in a quieter voice, "Were you expecting anyone around today? Why didn't you tell me?"

"No, no, I just stumbled out here from in those woods," Wallace explained, pointing behind himself. "See, I'm lost, and I could use a place to crash for the night."

"What is your name, boy?" questioned the first.

"My name's Wallace," he replied, stepping forward to shake a gloved hand. He leant down to shake the other boy's hand as well. 

"You obviously have no idea who I am," the first said haughtily. "Or else you wouldn't come marching up to me the way you are now. I am the great Kin-er...Kaizer who owns this castle and reigns within it. I own and control all of the land you see around you for miles and miles."

"And you're his servant?" Wallace asked the boy kneeling on the ground.

"Court jester, actually," the boy mumbled. "Though I don't do a good job of it. However, since the Kaizer and I are the only ones who reside in the entire castle, I do double as his servant. My name is Osamu."

"Is he your brother or something?"

Osamu and the Kaizer looked at each other and raised their eyebrows. The Kaizer looked at Wallace again and growled.

"How dare you insult me like that?! I should hang you for saying such a thing!"

"Look, all I'm asking for is a place to sleep tonight," Wallace repeated wearily.

The Kaizer narrowed his eyes at Wallace and crossed his arms over his chest again. "Now that I think about it...I could use another servant in the castle. Why shouldn't I take advantage of this situation? I could easily bend you to my will. Capture him, Osamu."

Wallace felt something cold closing over his left wrist and heard a faint clicking sound. He looked down and saw that he was handcuffed to Osamu. Osamu gave him an apologetic smile. 

"He isn't so bad to be around. His haughty attitude is all for show. Don't worry, you'll have fun here."

Osamu began to drag Wallace to the castle.

"But...but I was going after my friend," Wallace mumbled, trying vainly to slide his hand out from the metal clamped around his wrist. 

"Don't worry, you'll get used to the castle," Osamu went on cheerfully, oblivious to Wallace's struggling and mumbling.

"What about the croquet stuff?" Wallace asked, casting a hesitant glance over his shoulder.

"Don't worry about that, we'll get it later. No one's going to come and steal it. There isn't another soul around for miles. We're all alone here, as if we're on some kind of distant planet or something."

Wallace groaned and succumbed to the boy yanking him along towards the castle's main entrance.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Well, we should be leaving again soon. We can't stay here for too long," Ken reminded his friends.

"Are you _sure_ we have to leave so soon?" Daisuke whined, staring at the mass amounts of food spread out over the long table they were eating breakfast at. "I mean, when's the next time we'll have a chance to eat like this?"

"We can't stay here forever," Takeru snapped at him. "We don't live here."

"You're welcome anytime you want to visit," Hikari told them warmly. She eyed Daisuke and smiled. "Anytime."

"See?" Daisuke gave Takeru a pointed look, which he ignored.

"We will depart on our journey as soon as we are done eating," Ken said firmly.

"Okay," Daisuke replied cheerfully, giving Ken a full grin. 

Takeru gave the redhead a dirty look and sulkily tore a chunk of meat off of the chicken leg he was munching on. 

They heard a blast coming from somewhere outside and all talking ceased. Taichi sprung to his feet and ran to poke his head out of the hut. He pulled his body back inside and shouted, "We're under attack!"

Everyone scrambled outside and stared in shock as a mob of people began running into the village with guns and torches. The ones carrying torches began flinging them onto the roofs of huts, setting them aflame and making the people inside run out, screaming in terror. Taichi ran out to the middle of the village square and stared around with wide eyes at the damage being caused. He turned and screamed as loud as he could for all of the men to find weapons and fight back and for all of the women and children to run to safety. Figuring they were able to pass as "children", everyone but Taichi, Yamato, and Takeru ran like hell out of the village. The other three stayed behind to try and fight, but soon they found themselves overpowered and the three also fled into the forest.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Ken!" Daisuke screamed frantically. "Ken, where are you?! Takeru? Are either of you out there?"

"Yamato!" Miyako cried into the woods at her side. "Yamato, where the hell are you?!"

She bit her lip to fight back tears as she struggled to regain composure. She felt incredibly worried at the fact that she could not find Yamato, and she knew he had stayed behind to fight. She hoped that he was okay. She didn't know what she would do if she lost Yamato. She turned and saw that Daisuke seemed to be hyperventilating on the forest floor.

"Daisuke," she said clearly, shaking his shoulder. "We have to search for the others."

"But I've always been told that when you get lost you're supposed to stay still," Daisuke said, his voice a mere whine in his panic.

"Well, if everyone stayed put then no one would ever go looking for them and no progress would ever be made," Miyako said reasonably. She tried to haul him to his feet. "Come on, let's start looking. We can't lose our heads over this."

"Okay," Daisuke said, clearing his throat and trying to clear his mind as well. "Okay. I'm fine now." 

He stood and began looking in all possible directions at the forest around him, trying to choose which path to take. He stopped and stared forward at the broken path he was now staring at. It was the path they had just run through. He turned around one-hundred-eighty degrees and pointed. 

"We have to keep going straight. We should eventually come to some form of civilization."

Miyako stared in wonder at the now calm-and-composed Daisuke. His change in personality had been a surprise to her and she couldn't help but nod and agree with his reasoning, following him down the path he'd just pointed at. 

Daisuke was determined to find Ken and Takeru. He decided he would stop at nothing as long as he would be able to find them again. He hadn't been without them for a couple of days and he already missed their company. 

__

I'll find them, and I won't ever lose them again, he told himself. _Takeru's probably going crazy right now with no one to argue with. _

~ ~ ~ ~  


"Ken? Where are we?"

"Er, I don't exactly know where we are right now, but give me a moment and I'll find the direction we should be headed in," Ken replied confidently. He closed his eyes and thought hard for a moment, and then began looking carefully at all of the trees around himself. "These trees only grow in one certain place. I know where we are now. We just have to head in this direction for a few miles and we should come to a village."

"I'm glad I got lost with you, Ken," Hikari said thankfully. "You at least know what you're doing."

"Well, I have to," Ken said, looking over at her. He looked forward again. "Let's get going."

~ ~ ~ ~

"What do you mean we're lost? Don't you know anything about the area surrounding your own village? And you, I thought you knew the area well? After all, you spend all your time romping around in the forest and shooting people with your stupid arrows!"

"If you don't shut up, I'm going to shoot you," Yamato told the younger blonde with a growl just as fierce, possibly even fiercer, than the other's. Takeru narrowed his eyes but wisely kept his mouth shut.

"Wait, I know where we are," Taichi said, looking around himself from the rock he'd climbed up on. "We need to go...that way," he said, pointing to the right.

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as I am that the sky is blue," Taichi replied with a cheeky grin. 

Yamato and Takeru gave him twin skeptical looks. 

"Come on, what do we have to lose?" Taichi asked brightly.

"I'm not sure I like the idea of you leading us," Takeru said, looking Taichi over.

"Come on, Takeru. Don't you trust me?" 

"No."

"But I _know_ where we are," Taichi said again.

"I think I'll go my own way, thank you very much," Takeru said, going off in the direction to the left.

"We have to go to the right!" Taichi called after him, pointing with his finger. 

"I'm going to the left," Takeru called back over his shoulder.

"But...but..." Taichi sighed and dropped his finger in defeat. He looked at Yamato. "Well?"

Yamato stood and pondered the matter for awhile before turning and walking off to the left after Takeru. 

"Hey!" Taichi called indignantly.

"That kid's annoying, but he's got a head on his shoulders," Yamato said without looking back at Taichi, knowing that he was following close behind, probably hanging his head and dragging his feet reluctantly. "Unlike you, who has got a tiny bit of neck and then a brown bush you call your hair."

"Very funny," grumbled Taichi.

"If you don't want to lose me, you'd better walk faster than that," Takeru called back.

"Man, does he remind me of you," Taichi said.

"That's why I'm following him," Yamato said, smirking. "Everyone knows I'm always right."

"I hope so," Taichi said as he straightened up and resigned to his fate, walking faster so he wouldn't lose sight of the blonde walking far ahead of them.


	7. Is it very smart to just waltz into a ca...

A/N: Still dealing with the change in my own penname. It just isn't the same to me when I look at it...sort of like it's not me anymore. Well, I guess I understand ff.net's reasons for changing it, but it's still kind of weird for me. I guess I'll get used to it. Anyways, I have the next chapter here for everyone. Sorry it's taken longer than usual to get out, but it's here now, so go ahead and read. Not so much switching characters in this chapter. Hope you enjoy.

When he opened his eyes, he felt absolutely nothing besides vague disorientation, his mind still lost in the haze that hangs around for the first few minutes after waking up from a deep sleep. Iori slowly turned his head to look around him and noticed that he was alone. As he continued to lay in his surprisingly comfortable spot on the verdant ground, he began remembering the previous day: the kidnapping, the confusion as he was dragged, blindfolded, to a place he didn't recognize once he was granted proper vision once again, and how unintelligent his kidnappers had been, making it easy for him to escape during that same night. He still didn't know why he had been kidnapped, and he still didn't know where in the world he was. 

He slowly rose to his feet, rubbing his dark brown hair, which was wild and unkempt from tossing and turning in his sleep on the forest floor. His sharp green eyes couldn't detect any form of life or any movement in the brush surrounding him, and so he judged the area safe, beginning to walk freely through the trees, not bothering to keep his footsteps quiet. The crackle of leaves under his feet was a welcome sound in the almost eerie silence of the forest. He couldn't even hear any signs of animal life; no birds were singing, no critters were scurrying about on the leaves, no branches and leaves were being stirred overhead. There wasn't even any wind to listen to. He began humming a song to himself to defeat the silence, but his own voice sounded unusually loud to his ears, and it was so out of place that Iori quickly shut his mouth, feeling as if he had just screamed his presence to the surrounding forest.

He sighed to himself and continued walking, already feeling bored with the lack of anything to do besides simply walk. He wished he had his kendo stick, so he could at least practice and all of this time would not be wasted on walking when he didn't even know where he was or where he was going. He debated searching for a branch or a stick on the ground to use in place of a kendo stick and practicing with that instead, but when he looked around he saw that there weren't any trees with branches anywhere near low enough for any human to grab a hold of, much less such a short boy, and these trees did not look climbable, what with their broad, flat trunks stretching up for what seemed like miles to the small boy. 

  
However, all thought of climbing trees and finding sticks fled from Iori's mind when he saw what seemed to be a cave up ahead of him. He began walking faster, eager to move out of the forest and into a different kind of scenery. All of the green was unsettling to him somehow.

It was only after he had entered the cave and almost immediately tripped over the body lying on the floor that he realized the cave was not unoccupied.

~ ~ ~ ~  


"Miya! Miya! Get over here!"

Miyako sighed when the loud voice startled the squirrel she had been carefully following, intent on killing it for a meal. She turned away from her escaped prey and called back, "What do you want?"

"I've found a river!"

Miyako began sprinting in the direction of Daisuke's voice and she found him bent over the aforementioned river, drinking from it. She walked over to get a drink for herself.

Daisuke sat up again, looking around, wiping his dripping mouth with the back of his hand. "Hey, do you think this river leads to a village or anything? It seems to get calmer up ahead."

Miyako lifted her head and swallowed the water inside of her wet mouth, squinting as she tried to locate where the river slowed down and became more steady. 

"I can't see too far ahead; I have bad vision. If you do see it, though, then I guess it very well could lead to civilization of some sort."

"Great, let's follow it then!" Daisuke said excitedly, leaping to his feet and grinning at her.

She grinned back and straightened up, and they began chatting animatedly as they walked along the riverside.

Miyako and Daisuke had not become close at first, since they both had the stubbornness of a mule and Miyako had a quick temper that reminded Daisuke of Takeru, which both enlightened and disheartened him. However, after spending the first night together, they'd had a long heart-to-heart while drifting off to sleep near their warm campfire, and they'd talked about how they hoped Yamato, Takeru and Ken were okay, and Daisuke had gotten Miyako to confess that she had feelings for the blonde (though he'd had more than a hunch about it before), and Daisuke told Miyako about Takeru's confession and how confused and torn he felt between his two friends, and how he felt he was falling for the both of them a bit too fast for his liking. Miyako was understanding, and Daisuke was glad he had someone to talk to about it. The next morning, the two had woken to greet each other as old friends would, and though they jokingly argued with each other often, they felt close enough to each other to consider the other a good friend. 

"Miya, I think I hear voices nearby," Daisuke whispered to her.

She nodded to him. She had heard the voices a few seconds before, having a more keen sense of hearing than the redhead, which came from being in the woods for so long and having to rely on senses other than her poor eyesight to hunt.

They hid behind the cover of a few bushes as they peered out through the leaves at the sight before them. 

A blue-haired man was feeding a young woman with long, light-brown hair what looked like mush from a small cooking pot over a fire. The woman looked dazed and her eyes were unfocused as her mouth dropped open to allow the spoon access into her mouth. She closed it and the man pulled the spoon back out, wiping her mouth carefully with his fingertips. 

"Good?" he asked, his voice sounding light.

The woman nodded at the floor.

"Did you swallow?"

The woman nodded again. 

Miyako frowned. The girl seemed a bit too young for him, with her young, girlish face, compared with his tired-looking, older face. He looked worn-out and as if he hadn't showered in days, while her skin seemed as fresh and soft as velvety flower petals. She wondered what their relation to each other was. She contemplated interrupting this peaceful, intimate scene to ask for food, but it turned out she needn't worry about it, for just then Daisuke popped out from behind the bushes and strode forward, greeting the two confused-looking people already sitting there. She shut her eyes and gritted her teeth, cursing Daisuke's sudden impulses, and figuring she had nothing better to do, stood and began walking after him.

"Hey, you don't look like you're from around here. Are you guys lost?" Daisuke asked, sitting cross-legged on the other side of the fire and the cooking pot.

"N-No," the man said uncomfortably, his eyes shifty and nervous. His arm tightened its hold around the woman's shoulders as she struggled to focus on Daisuke's face. Her head drooped to rest on the man's shoulder, her eyes closing.

Miyako sat beside Daisuke. "Forgive my friend. He has no manners. I am Miyako, and he is Daisuke. We are travelers, and it seems to me that you are as well. Would you mind sparing some of your food?"

"Not at all, go right ahead. I made too much, anyways, and I feared precious food was going to go to waste," Jyou replied.

Daisuke immediately reached forward and began spooning mush out with his cupped hands. Miyako gave him a disgusted look as he began eating straight out of his hands, licking at them to get every delicious morsel. She turned to regard the woman with a concerned look.

"What is wrong with the girl?"

"She's sick," the man said sadly, looking at her and reaching a hand up to gently tuck a loose strand of hair behind the young woman's ear.

"What is her name?" Miyako asked, dipping her hands into the cooking pot as soon as she realized it was rapidly disappearing into Daisuke's stomach, not wanting to go hungry again.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce us to you when you introduced yourselves," the man said, smiling apologetically and more than a little fretfully.

"It's alright," she assured him. She wondered why he seemed to be such a nervous man.

"My name is Jyou, and this is my wife, Mimi," the man said, indicating to the young woman resting against his shoulder and arm.

"Your wife? She seems a bit young," Miyako said, eyebrows raising.

"Oh, it is because she has such a girlish face and she is of such small frame. She is only one year younger than I," Jyou replied, blushing slightly at the thought of his seeming so old. "She is eighteen and I am nineteen."

At first she did not believe his claim. This haggard man could not be merely nineteen-years-old. However, as she studied him further, she realized that his apprehension made him seem many years older than he actually was. His face was lined with many years of constant worry. She guessed him to have some sort of nervous anxiety disorder. 

"Bullshit," Daisuke said, his hunger seeming to be satisfied, his dirty hands resting against his knees. He was staring hard at Jyou, eyes untrusting. 

Jyou looked alarmed as he peered at Daisuke's face and he quickly turned all of his attentions to Mimi, who had just moaned as if in pain. He began talking to her under his breath.

"I don't believe a word of it," Daisuke said, crossing his arms over his chest stubbornly.

"Daisuke!" Miyako admonished.

The redhead shook his head, pointing at Jyou. "You are a liar and a fake."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jyou said quickly, not looking up from Mimi's pale face.

"She isn't sick. She isn't your wife, either, I bet," Daisuke said, grin twisting into something almost wicked. "Though I'd believe she's eighteen. Don't know about you being nineteen, though."

Jyou did turn to look at him this time, eyes wide. "How-How did you know?"

"You're a bad liar, Jyou. If that is your name," Daisuke added as an afterthought. "Your posture and your face as you talked was just all wrong. Plus how nervous you were when we walked in on you. You were expecting someone else...someone who would come and take you away."

Miyako joined Jyou in gaping at Daisuke. 

"I'm good at reading body movement," Daisuke said, grinning to himself. "I'm a thief. I guess I have to be."

"What do you mean you're a thief?" Miyako asked him. She didn't remember that being mentioned in their conversations.

"I'll tell you later," Daisuke said to Miyako. He turned to Jyou once again, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Now tell us the real story. Who is she, and why are you out here?"

"I'm a preacher, and I accidentally got this girl pregnant, so I grabbed her, drugged her, and dragged her out here, and I'm trying to get out of this stupid forest so I can find some place where I can change my name, my profession, and my life."

Daisuke nodded, eyebrows raised as he whistled to himself. "Quite a story you got there."

Miyako was gaping at Jyou much like a fish does when caught.

"But I love her," Jyou continued earnestly, once again tightening his hold on Mimi's shoulders. "I fully intend to marry her when I find a place where I safely can, and I'm going to help raise the baby. It's mine, after all."

"Good," Daisuke said, smiling to himself as if satisfied with Jyou's answer and straightening up. 

"You bastard," Miyako hissed, breaking out of her shock.

The two males turned to stare at her, eyebrows raising.

"Me?" Jyou asked, unsure as to whether the insult had been directed at him or Daisuke.

"You drugged her?" Miyako asked fiercely, raising to her feet.

"Um, yes?" Jyou replied quietly, wincing at the fury in the girl's eyes.

"How dare you bring a woman to such a low level with the use of such foul weapons!" Miyako screeched at him. "Look at her! Look at what you've reduced her to! It's inhumane! You chauvinistic pig!"

"I didn't know it was-" Jyou began, but he was cut off by Daisuke.

"Lay off, Miya! He's just trying to save her. He already said he loves her," Daisuke said angrily, rising to his feet and glaring at the girl.

She turned on him, eyes flashing dangerously. Daisuke gulped despite himself.

"I can't believe you're supporting this! I thought better of you, Daisuke!" she cried.

She stormed off into the woods, mumbling angrily to herself. Daisuke began following her, sighing and calling out to her.

"Miya, don't run off, you'll get lost! Oh, come on, you're overreacting. Miya! Where did you go?"

He beat at the foliage covering his path and searched around frantically for his enraged friend. He broke out of the trees and stood staring at the back of Miyako's head. 

"There you are."

He lifted his eyes to stare at what Miyako herself was scrutinizing at that moment. They stood at the mouth of a cave which didn't look as dark as it should. He guessed there were people somewhere deep inside the cave and pondered over whether or not he should run in. He heard rustling in the trees behind him and looked back to see Jyou had followed them, holding Mimi securely around her waist at his side. He stared at the mouth of the cave and then lowered his eyes to Daisuke's face.

"Should we go in?"

Jyou shrugged. 

"Why not?" Miyako asked. They turned to watch as she began walking into the cave. 

Jyou and Daisuke looked at each other again for a few seconds before walking in after her, Daisuke walking at Mimi's other side, offering support.

They were soon shrouded by the darkness within the cavernous cave.


	8. How do they even have pizza delivery if ...

A/N: Next chapter here. Getting chapters for this story out at a nice pace. Yay. I already know what's happening in the next one, too. Anyways, this is still building plot. Things will start to make sense in time. For now...enjoy Osamu sitting on the Kaizer's lap like a good little lapdog and Koushirou being a bad boy. 

"What's his name?"

"Jyou."

The red-haired young woman handed her partner a picture of the man. 

"What's on his head?"

"Big bucks. They want him for ten thousand."

"Ten thousand? That's a crapload of money for a low-life preacher."

"The girl he took was the daughter of a rich man. She's also incredible attractive and has many rich suitors waiting for her to come back and marry one of them. He's in a hurry to have her back and make her a wife. That's why the reward is so high."

"Rich men mean big money. So we're in?"

"Of course we're in," Sora smirked, standing up from where they were crouching huddled together on the ground. "And I have a good idea where we're going to find him..."

"How do you know?"

"Let's just say I have friends in high places."

Jun raised an eyebrow and shrugged. The bounty hunter didn't care much for Sora's high-placed friends. She just wanted to get that blue-haired head and get paid. 

Sora, however, had other reasons for wanting to go after this particular man. She knew the pair better than she was letting on to her partner. She wanted that bastard to bring Mimi back to her at once, and since she doubted he was going to come back, she'd just have to go after them herself.

~ ~ ~ ~

"I told you we should have gone right!" 

"Shut up, Tai!"

"I think I see something."

Yamato and Taichi turned to look at Takeru, who was peering through the trees to what seemed like open space. After several hours and one night of being lost, this was a very welcome sight. The three of them began sprinting, tripping over each other in their haste to make it out of the forest. 

They reached flat land which, when Takeru bothered to look down at the ground instead of at the humongous place in front of him, was made up of neatly-cut green grass.

"What the hell is this place?" Taichi asked under his breath.

Yamato shook his head, chin tilted up, eyes wide and looking over the humongous wall that seemed to be the side of a giant building.

"Let's find out," Takeru said with a grin, and he began walking the length of the wall, which he was sure had to be the side of some kind of castle or mansion.

Since they didn't have any other plan, Yamato and Taichi followed at his heels.

~ ~ ~ ~

Wallace sighed, and when his head drooped slightly, he heard the jingling of the bells dangling from the satin cap he wore on his head. He poked at the ground before him with his joker's cane. He didn't know how he'd let himself become the court jester, but apparently he did a much better job of telling jokes than Osamu ever did. Osamu had been moved up to the position of Kaizer's Advisor.

He currently sat next to the throne, on the ground, and was vaguely aware of the Kaizer tugging gently on one of the flappy ear-like things hanging from his jester's hat. The jingling sound was starting to get to him. 

"Would you stop doing that?"

"I'm bored," the Kaizer complained.

"You don't think I am?" Wallace asked sarcastically.

"I could order us some pizza," Osamu offered from his place on the Kaizer's lap.

Wallace did not want to know how long the Advisor had been sitting there.

"That'd be nice," Wallace muttered.

"Hmm," the Kaizer said. 

Osamu guessed this was an affirmative and he got up, ignoring the Kaizer's groan about his weighing too much, to find the castle's main phone. 

"I wish we had visitors more often. Visitors that aren't German," Kaizer added as an afterthought.

"Tired of us already?" Wallace joked lightly. He paused. "German?"

"You don't know the whole story, do you?" the Kaizer asked him, looking over the side of his throne and down at him. 

"Story?"

"You see, I made a bet with these German rulers when they were visiting once. It was during the World Cup. I bet that Japan would beat Germany because we are so better at playing footie than they are. They accepted the bet. If I won, they'd have to send me tons of Germans to come and be my servants and work for me around the castle. If they won, they wanted me to change my title from King to Kaizer, which is their word for it, I guess, and I would lose all of the servants I had at the time to them. Obviously, they won."

"So that's why it's just you two all alone here?"

"Yeah, that's why."

"Why didn't they take Osamu?"

"Uh...well, I included in my bet that they could have everyone but him. He's, erm, special. I can't lose him."

"Right." 

Wallace raised an eyebrow at him. The Kaizer busily inspected a piece of fuzz clinging to his sleeve. Osamu returned saying the pizza delivery guy was on his way.

"Great!" the Kaizer said quickly. "That's great. Pizza, good. I'm hungry."

"Yeah, me too," Wallace said, looking away uncomfortably.

The Kaizer coughed.

Osamu looked back and forth between the two of them and narrowed his eyes at the Kaizer. "Did I interrupt something? Want me to leave you two alone?"

"No, it's okay!" the Kaizer cried just as Wallace said, "No, that's quite alright, _stay_."

"Okay..." Osamu said, walking to the throne and sitting on one of the surprisingly cushion-like arms.

The Kaizer grinned an I'm-too-cute-to-be-upset-with grin at him. Osamu sighed and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I won't ask."

"Okay."

There was a long silence. The Kaizer coughed again. Wallace rubbed the back of his neck. Osamu stared at the ceiling.

"So...the castle has been boring the past few days."

"It certainly has. The last time you did anything at all was when you found that tavern of drunken weird people and paid them all to go destroy the nearest Indian village, and that was two whole days ago."

"Yeah."

"Which village did you attack?" Wallace asked, turning to him. "I can't remember."

"It was some small Indian village no one had really known about," the Kaizer said, waving a hand dismissively. "No one will care. Their chief was a kid, anyways. Couldn't have been prospering much."

"Kids can be chiefs?" Wallace asked, knowing next to zilch about Indian villages.

"Well, if the previous chief dies early, then I suppose they have to," the Kaizer replied. "He wasn't that little of a kid. He was around seventeen years of age. I wonder if anyone survived that attack?"

"I thought they all escaped into the woods."

"No one escapes my attacks," the Kaizer said flatly.

Osamu blinked and sat up straighter, quickly correcting himself. "Er, of course no one survived."

"I thought as much."

Wallace rolled his eyes at them both.

Someone knocked on the castle doors.

"That was fast," Osamu said. He got off of the throne arm and walked to the front door. He pulled back the large, heavy wooden door with a smile.

He stared a while at the three boys standing outside. One was a brunette and the other two were blonde. 

"Since when do pizza boys have to travel with two companions?" Osamu asked them, raising an eyebrow. He looked them over. "And where is the pizza?"

~ ~ ~

"Shh."

"Don't you dare 'shh' me," Miyako hissed at Daisuke. 

They were still creeping through the cave. The light was getting brighter every few steps. 

"I think I hear someone."

Daisuke turned to look at Miyako, raising an eyebrow. That voice didn't sound like any of them. He turned to look at Jyou and Mimi behind them and Jyou shrugged at him. The cave was inhabited after all. They snuck up to a corner and Daisuke carefully peered around it. He came face-to-face with spiky red hair and large dark eyes. He screamed and the other person screamed as well. Miyako screamed as a result, which stirred Mimi, and she began screaming as well.

"What?! What is it?!" Daisuke heard another new voice asking from somewhere beyond the person standing right in front of him.

"Who are you?" the person asked him.

Daisuke blinked. "Who are _you_?" he countered, regaining his composure and blushing a bit at having been scared like that.

"I asked you first," the guy said dryly.

Daisuke looked him over. "Daisuke," he said shortly, holding a hand up.

"Koushirou," the person replied. He looked down at the hand. "I don't shake hands."

Daisuke lowered his, narrowing his eyes. 

A short boy with small, deep green eyes walked up behind Koushirou. "Kou?" 

Koushirou looked back at the boy and smiled, beckoning him over.

"This is Iori," he said, putting an arm around the boy. "He found me earlier today."

"He found you?" Daisuke repeated, eyebrow lifting.

"Well, he tripped over me," Koushirou corrected himself.

Iori laughed quietly. He hid it behind a hand, as if he thought it was impolite to laugh in front of people.

"Oh, I forgot," Daisuke said, as he felt Miyako poking his side insistently and clearing her voice. "These are my friends, Miyako, Jyou, and Mimi."

"Is she okay?" Koushirou asked, pointing at Mimi and looking a tad bit concerned.

"Yeah, she's fine," Daisuke said, waving it off. "Got any food?"

"You just ate!" Miyako screeched at him.

"We have about a hundred dollars in doughnuts," Koushirou said with a sneaky grin, upturned nose and all, as if he'd done something he wasn't supposed to.

"That sounds so good," Daisuke said, mouth watering. "Show me to the doughnuts."

Iori said, "They're over here," and Daisuke followed him to the back of the cave, where the fire was. Miyako huffed a few times before looking over, rolling her eyes, and following them, asking for them to toss her a chocolate doughnut.

Koushirou stared at Jyou for a while, blinking and looking him over a few times. 

"Hey," he said quietly. "Heyyyyyy," he repeated, drawing the "y" out for an unnecessarily long time. "I know you."

"You do?" Jyou asked, immediately sounding nervous and edgy.

"Yeah, I'm s'pposed to arrest you," Koushirou said matter-of-factly. 

"What?!" Jyou cried, eyes widening more than they should be able to.

"Eh, don't worry. You're fine," Koushirou said, waving his hand. "Iori and I have had a long talk while we've been in here, and I've decided that I'm tired of being overlooked at work. They don't appreciate me much there."

"So you aren't going to arrest me or turn me in or tell anyone I'm here?" Jyou asked hopefully.

"Nah," Koushirou said, a sudden light coming to his face. "I'm going to do just the opposite. I'm going to help you."

Jyou blinked. "What?"

Koushirou laughed to himself and a shiver ran up Jyou's spine. That wasn't joyful-sounding laughter. 

"Come and have a few doughnuts before they all disappear. I want to have a talk with you."


	9. How does it feel to have a gun pressed a...

A/N: Longer chapter than usual. Things will start to be tied together pretty soon. People are slowly meeting each other. Please be patient with this story and me, both. Well, here's yet another chapter for you all to enjoy!

"So, the next town is just five miles down this road?" 

"That's right."

"Okay, thanks so much for helping us!" 

Hikari smiled sweetly at the man and bowed. She turned and ran back to Ken, who was busy trying to grab his hat, which had been blown away by a particularly strong wind.

"Got your hat?" Hikari giggled as Ken finally pounced onto the wide-brimmed witch's hat, pulling it on over his head and keeping it on with one hand just in case, straightening his long coat with the other hand. 

"Got the directions?" he countered.

Hikari nodded happily. "Just five miles down this road, there's a town we could stay at."

"Good. I don't want to walk anymore," Ken said wearily. "Did you thank the guy?"

"Of course I did," Hikari replied, wrinkling her nose at the thought of being so impolite as to not thank him. She turned to look for the man, and found he was already leading his horse on down the road in the other direction. 

"Well, let's get going then. I want to get there before nightfall," Ken said, striding forward purposefully.

"Yes, that would be a good idea," the Indian princess sighed, walking quickly to catch up with the long-legged witch.

Now far behind them, the man discreetly looked back over his shoulder at the people he had just "helped." He quickly searched in the sack hanging over the horse's back and pulled out a small device. He turned it on and brought it up to his mouth.

"You've got a witch and that Indian princess girl walking towards you. Thought you could use help finding your guy."

"Are you sure he's a witch?" a voice crackled over the device.

"If he isn't, then he's a very weird fellow, because he's all decked out in witch apparel," the man said dryly.

"Well, good work, Shin. We'll keep an eye out for them."

"No problem, Sora," the man replied. "Over and out."

"You are such a dork."

He turned the device off and smiled, slipping it back into the sack. The horse whinnied and tossed its head towards him.

"Yeah, yeah, we can start moving again," Shin said with a smile, patting the horse's neck and starting to walk again.

~ ~ ~ ~

Jun looked doubtfully at the device Sora was now lowering and shoving into a pocket. 

"Your great 'friend in a high place' is my stupid ex-boyfriend?"

"Well, he's the only one with any spy experience."

"Spy experience? We just used him that one time to help spy on your ex-boyfriend and make sure he wasn't cheating on you."

"Okay, so he was the only one who would help out."

"Because he has no social life."

"Would you cut it out? At least he's doing something. He's sent that witch our way. Speaking of the witch, we should start looking out for him and his little Indian princess friend. Shouldn't be too long until they show up."

Jun sighed and threw her head back, rolling her eyes. Sora smacked her on the shoulder and they both shuffled out of the small bar they were in to walk towards the entrance to the fair-sized town. They figured they could hang around there and "bump into" the witch when they saw him. Once they found the entrance, they sat down on a couple of wooden crates to wait.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Um, you're who?"

"The ruler of the lands you have been traveling through. The owner of the forests and the villages you have lived in your entire lives. The Kaiser. You know, the King that got screwed-over-I-mean-tricked by the stupid Germans and now has to refer to himself as the German version of the title of Excellency."

"I still say I've never heard of you."

"Well...well you were all members of tiny little insignificant villages that know nothing about the world anyways!" the Kaiser spat moodily.

Taichi raised an eyebrow at him. "No need to get prissy."

"Who's prissy?!" the Kaiser screeched.

"Master," Osamu said softly, reaching a hand up to rest on the Kaiser's arm. 

The Kaiser composed himself, frowning darkly at the three boys standing in front of him. Wallace looked up to give him a concerned look before looking back down at the others.

"Anyways, it's a good thing that you have come."

"It is?" Takeru asked uncertainly.

"Yes. That is because there is three of you. I now have enough of you to complete my end of the stupid deal."

Wallace looked up at him quickly, eyebrows raised. "I thought you only had to call yourself "Kaiser" instead of "King" and give them all your servants?"

"Er, there is one more thing," the Kaiser said slowly. "The Germans are greedy people, you know. They want me to create a six-man soccer team to play against them and purposefully lose the game."

"They want you to what?" Taichi asked, blinking slowly, eyes slightly wide.

"I don't repeat myself," the Kaiser said shrilly. He took a deep breath. "Well, consider yourselves soccer players and tell me your clothes' sizes. I will need to get uniforms."

"Whoa, when did we agree to be a part of this team?" Yamato asked, holding his hands up in front of him.

"Who said you had to agree?" the Kaiser asked, grinning maliciously. "If you refuse, I could easily send an army of (drunken) men to destroy your villages and kill your people."

"Sorry, that's already been done to me," Taichi said gloomily.

The Kaiser grinned a wolfish grin. "I know."

Taichi's head snapped up, eyes wide. He narrowed his eyes and sent the Kaiser a seething glare his way, fists clenching. "You didn't."

"I believe I did. And you would know, because you were there, weren't you? Not that you tried to save your precious village or anything."

"There was nothing I could do," Taichi said through his teeth.

"Right," the Kaiser replied with narrowed eyes. "So, are you all going to tell me your uniform sizes or not? Or do you want a few more villages to be demolished?"

The three looked at each other with shame in their eyes and began calling out numbers, one by one.

~ ~ ~ ~

"I want to set you free."

Jyou looked Koushirou over from across the fire. The redhead was licking chocolate frosting off of his fingers, looking up at him from under half-lowered eyelids. Jyou squirmed slightly.

"I still don't see why-"

"I told you. I hate my job. I'm through with it. I'm just sick of doing everything everyone ever tells me to do and hoping that I'll get some kind of praise, though I never do."

"Well, I would very much like to get out of the country to somewhere no one would recognize me," Jyou said truthfully.

"Consider it done," Koushirou said brightly. "I know just where to take you."

"And what about them?" Jyou asked, looking over at where Daisuke and Miyako sat listening to their conversation and feeding Mimi small bits of doughnut, and at where Iori sat near them, half-listening and half-staring out into space.

"Oh, don't worry about us," Miyako said cheerfully. "We'll just go to the next village or town and stay there until we can figure out where our friends are."

"The three of us can escort you to the town about fifteen miles to the north," Koushirou offered. "It's on our way to where we'll be headed, anyways."

"That would be awesome," Daisuke said with a big grin, giving them a thumbs-up before returning his hand to Mimi's arm.

"What about Iori?" Miyako asked, casting the youngest a worried look.

Iori didn't seem to register at first that they were talking about him. He broke out of his thoughts at the mention of his name and turned around slowly. "What?"

"What are you planning on doing, Iori? Do you want to stay with Daisuke and Miyako and see if you can find out in which direction your home lies?" Koushirou asked gently.

Iori shrugged. "I guess I have to. You've helped me enough, Kou. I shouldn't burden you anymore."

"You haven't been a burden at all, Iori," Koushirou reassured him lightly.

Iori smiled and lowered his eyes.

"Then it's settled," Koushirou said decisively. "We'll head out first thing tomorrow."

Everyone offered affirmative remarks and then they got ready to go to sleep, eager to rest up for the next day.

~ ~ ~ ~

Jun was roused from her daydreaming when she felt a finger poking her side. She turned to glare at Sora.

"What?"

"They're here," Sora said quietly, casting her eyes over to the entrance to the town, where a girl with a colorful headband and feathers poking out of her short brown hair and a boy with a long, black, buckled coat and a tall witch's hat on were just walking past the large sign with the town's name written across it in black spray paint.

"That has to be them, all right," Jun said with a smirk. Shin, for once, had been of some use to them. This boy was definitely a witch.

She stood and followed Sora out to the boy and the girl, who stood still, looking around themselves at the town and talking in hushed voices.

"Hello," Sora said brightly, stopping just in front of them.

"Hello," the girl replied cheerfully. The boy looked Sora up-and-down with a wary eye.

"Newcomers?" Jun asked politely, a greet-the-new-neighbors smile plastered on her face.

"Yeah, we just walked in," the boy replied, giving the sign they were standing near a pointed look.

Sora frowned briefly at the sarcasm but immediately regained her light tone. "Need someone to show you around town?"

"That would be great!" the girl replied gratefully.

"My name's Sora, and this is Jun," Sora said, offering a hand out.

The girl shook it eagerly, "Mine's Hikari. This is my friend, Ken."

"Ken," Sora repeated, looking at the boy. The boy looked back at her with an unreadable expression on his face.

"I'm so glad you two came out here to greet us. I would have been so lost if you hadn't," Hikari said gratefully.

"I could have found a place for us to stay," Ken said quietly, but confidently.

Hikari gave him a reproachful be-nice-or-else look. Jun raised an eyebrow and wondered if these two were really just "friends." 

"Well, if you'll just follow us, we'll lead you to the best hotel in town," Sora said cheerfully. Hikari began walking next to them, chatting animatedly with Sora. Jun glanced back every once in a while to where Ken strode a few steps behind them.

They soon reached the hotel and Sora told the woman behind the counter to find two rooms for her two new friends. The woman gave Sora a searching look and Sora nodded ever so slightly. The woman quickly produced two keys.

"Thanks, you're an angel," Sora said with a wink. The woman smiled and tipped her head slightly one time.

In the hotel room, Hikari looked around with slightly wide eyes.

"Wow. This is a big difference compared to those huts I've lived in my whole life."

"You lived in huts?" Sora asked, making a face.

"Well, yeah," Hikari said slowly, fingering the feathers in her hair.

"Oh, yes, you're an Indian," Sora said, as if it was just dawning on her.

They heard a scuffle coming from the room next to them, where Jun had followed Ken in to make sure he got settled in. 

"What was that?" Hikari asked quickly.

Sora scowled at the wall. She had given clear instructions to Jun about keeping things quiet. 

"I'm sure it's nothing," Sora said with a sugary-sweet reassuring smile.

Hikari found herself unable to do anything but smile back. Sora stepped up close to her.

"Tell me, Indian princess, have you ever been kidnapped before? Surely a pretty girl like yourself has been stolen from your village at least once in the past?"

"Er, no," Hikari said, taking a step back from Sora. "No, that's never happened to me before."

"Are you sure?" Sora asked. "Never even once?"

"No," Hikari said slowly.

She gasped slightly as she felt her back connecting with the wall. Sora had cornered her. Sora's grin twisted into something not-as-sugary and something pressed against her stomach. Hikari had never had a gun pressed to her before, but she knew what it was. Hikari gave a small yelp.

"Well, now you have been," Sora said, all trace of sweetness gone from her voice.

She reached up to cover Hikari's mouth before she could scream. 

"Jun!" she yelled.

Jun soon came in, dragging a tied-up and gagged Ken along with her, with much protesting and kicking on his part.

"Got her?"

"Yeah," Sora replied, holding onto Hikari while Jun came forward to grab her and tie her up as Sora stepped back and grabbed a hold of Ken's arm while still pointing the gun at Hikari's head.

"What do you want with us?" Hikari asked angrily.

"Simple. I just want your little witch friend to do a little magic for us. We need his help in finding a certain someone."

Hikari blinked. "Ken can do that?" she asked uncertainly.

Sora paused and remembered that not all witches had that ability. They all had different abilities, depending on the kinds of witches they were. She turned and motioned to Jun.

Jun removed Ken's gag. "Can you?" she asked him unkindly.

"Yeah, I can, but I need both a sample of his blood and a hair from his head," Ken said briskly.

"Got that covered," Sora grinned. 

  
Jun raised an eyebrow. "You do?"

Sora laughed to herself and nodded. "It's in our room, though. Last time I saw Jyou, I got into quite the fight with him. Scratched him up and everything. I cleaned my hands on one of the towels I've brought along. It's stained with his blood, and I know I saw a few blue hairs on it."

"Bring me the towel, and I'll find your friend," Ken said, "but then you have to let us go."

"I don't like treating people so badly, but I really need the money on this guy's head," Sora said with a small smile, "so if there's something you need that isn't too much to ask for, I could try to do it for you."

"Actually, we're looking for a couple of friends," Ken said quickly at the mention of a favor.

"We could see what we could do for you," Sora said with a smirk. "First, do _our_ favor."

Ken snorted at it being called a favor and waited as Sora left to retrieve the towel. She brought it back and tossed it onto the floor at Ken's feet.

"Well, work your magic, witch-boy," Sora said.

"Untie me first?" Ken asked wryly.

Jun made him promise not to try anything stupid like running off before undoing the ropes binding his wrists and ankles together. She blocked the doorway just in case.

"Go ahead," Sora said, motioning to the towel and keeping a hand on Hikari's shoulder and the gun against Hikari's head where they stood against one wall.

Ken sighed and looked up at her. "Right. I need complete silence."


	10. Why do we have to wear pink?

A/N: This story's almost over. A couple of chapters and I'll be through with it, and I can start working on the many fics I am tweaking around with on the side. Let's see...not so much romance in these chapters, huh? Wait until they all meet up again. You'll get your romance then, I promise. ^-~ Still unsure on definite couples. I'm pretty sure I know who's going to end up with who, though. Anyways, enjoy the chapter.

This chapter is dedicated to...several people:

Frankie, for absolutely everything. 

Aero-Grrl, because it's great to have someone to actually talk to about writing, and because I just love your stories. ^-~

Mr. Kinne, the greatest teacher in the whole freaking world, whom I dearly miss. Hope you're having oodles of fun in Boston! (Are you in Boston already? X.x)

Frankie...I mentioned him already, didn't I? He gets two mentions. He's just that special. ^-~

"This isn't fair," he sighed, and his two companions gave him "no shit" looks from their own respective beds. They were in a large bedroom close to the one Osamu and Wallace shared. 

"Of course it isn't fair," Takeru gave Taichi a dull look. "But I'm not having the tyrant kill the people in my village, no matter how bitter I feel towards them lately."

"There are many things I'd rather be doing than kicking a ball around in a game that I already know I'm going to lose, but I guess we don't really have a choice."

Taichi sighed loudly at Yamato's words and relented, laying down on the fluffy mattress and digging his head into the soft pillow. He stared at Yamato as the blonde rested his own pillow on his lap and slowly, carefully began fluffing it up, as if preparing it for his head. Yamato felt the heavy gaze on him and looked up at Taichi, but the brunette had already closed his eyes and was slowly drifting off to sleep.

"Goodnight," Taichi murmured to the other two, "get ready to lose tomorrow afternoon."

Takeru snorted from where he sat on the window ledge, staring sullenly out into the night.

Yamato frowned and stood up to walk over to the younger blonde. Takeru didn't seem to make note of the other boy leaning against the wall and looking him over. 

"You okay?"

Takeru ignored him. Yamato narrowed his eyes and growled lightly in the back of his throat. When Takeru glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, he could have sworn he saw Yamato's hair bristling. The older blonde truly was the human incarnation of the wolf.

"Don't bullshit me. You've got a personality that is quite similar to mine, so don't think you're tricking me with this whole I-don't-give-a-damn attitude."

Takeru turned to look at him at last, raising an elegant blonde eyebrow. Yamato returned the look with surprising grace. He was even better at giving a dry look than Takeru was. Takeru sighed and let his head fall back, his hair sliding back to expose the creamy white skin of his forehead. 

"I'm just worried, okay?"

"Worried about what?"

"Ken, mostly. I'm a little bit worried about Daisuke, too, but if you let that slip to anyone, I'll find a way to hurt you." Takeru gave him a look that convinced Yamato he'd keep his word. Yamato could tell that Takeru cared more than just "a little bit" about Daisuke, but wisely chose to keep his mouth shut. Takeru continued, "I know they're probably doing just fine, but the fact that I'm stuck in here and I can't help them is unsettling. I mean, one of them could be in some kind of trouble right now, as we speak, and I wouldn't even know, much less be able to do anything about it."

Yamato smiled slightly. He understood where Takeru was coming from. He knew that Taichi was lying in the bed not too far away from them, and so was not worried about him, but if he had lost Taichi in the flight from the Indian village, he wouldn't have been so calm and collected then.

"I think that Daisuke and Ken are going to be okay," he told Takeru, "but you aren't, if you don't get sleep tonight. We have a big day ahead of us."

"Oh, yeah," Takeru said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "I can't wait."

Yamato chuckled softly. "Get to bed."

Takeru climbed off of the window ledge and trudged to his bed. Yamato shook his head slowly as he watched Takeru pull the covers back, muttering to himself. The kid reminded him of himself way too much for his own good. Yamato went to his own bed. He checked on Takeru once before laying down, smiling when he saw the younger boy seemed to be struggling to find a comfortable position. He laid down and pulled the covers up over his shoulder, his back to Takeru's bed, facing Taichi's bed. He saw that Taichi was facing him, but seemed to be asleep already. He studied the boy for a few long minutes, memorizing the way he looked now, so when he shut his eyes and readied himself for sleep, he could still see Taichi clearly, a beautiful image burned onto his mind. 

~ ~ ~ ~

Ken was bent over the towel where it was spread out on the ground, one hand resting with the palm flat on the surface, the other poking two fingers in between two spread fingers on his other hand. He was muttering to himself, eyes closed gently, looking peaceful except for the concentration lines on his forehead. He ran his fingers over the blood splotches and Sora noticed that, even though the blood was dried and should not have been able to be rubbed off, his fingertips were stained red. A blue hair was wrapped around both fingers, binding them together. 

Ken slowly opened his eyes and stared into space, eyes half-lidded and rimmed with red, slightly bloodshot, looking as if he were high. Sora began to wonder if maybe using witch-powers had some kind of a chemical reaction in the brain like a drug might.

"Hey, witch-boy," Jun called, "you see anything with your third eye or whatever?"

Ken snapped out of the after-haze and gathered the towel in his hands hastily, standing up and facing them.

"I know where he is," he said briskly.

~ ~ ~ ~

"WAKE UP!" 

"Eep!" Daisuke sat up so quickly he smacked heads with Koushirou. They each groaned and touched their foreheads gingerly. Miyako and Jyou laughed at them. Iori politely tried to stifle his laugh. Mimi made a gurgling sound. 

"What are you yelling for?!" Daisuke demanded.

"If we don't get a move on soon we'll never get out of this cave," Koushirou said, eyes narrowed, carefully lowering his hand from his head. "Besides, you were snoring."

"He always snores," Miyako said, rolling her eyes.

"Do not!"

"Come on," Koushirou said, waving his hand in an arc. 

Daisuke slowly rose, stretching and grinning in satisfaction when he heard something pop.

They gathered the food that they had left over, along with whatever else they were carrying on their journey, and they began walking north. 

"How much longer until we get there?"

"It's fifteen miles away, Daisuke," Jyou said, looking at him over the top of Mimi's drooping head. 

"Fifteen," Daisuke repeated, frowning. "That's too far to walk."

"How else do you presume we get there?" Koushirou asked, raising an eyebrow. "Unless you have a horse in your pocket, we're going to have to stick to walking the whole way."

They slipped back into silence. Koushirou began planning what they were going to do once they arrived at the town. They'd have to find a hotel or another place to spend the night at. The following morning, they could make more precise plans as to who was going to go where.

"But...it's fifteen miles," Daisuke whined, breaking the comfortable silence.

"Yes," Koushirou said through gritted teeth, "fifteen miles."

"_Fifteen_ miles! You can't _walk_ fifteen miles."

"There's a cliff about two miles ahead," Miyako said conversationally. "We could throw Daisuke over it, and we'll have one less person to worry about."

"What?!" Daisuke cried.

"You're right, Miyako," Koushirou replied, looking thoughtful. "It's on the way, too. We wouldn't have to make any detours."

"But-"

"His whining _is_ annoying," Iori admitted quietly.

"You can't-"

"It might take our combined efforts to throw him over the edge, though. He is a fiesty one," Jyou said, grinning.

"Jyou!" Daisuke frowned, looking betrayed.

They all turned to give him barely-concealed grins. When they broke into laughter, Daisuke stopped panicking, looking confused.

"We're just playing around, Dai," Jyou assured him, clapping him on the shoulder. "We aren't going to throw you off a cliff."

"Though it is tempting," Miyako cut in softly.

"We wouldn't do that to you," Koushirou said, giving Daisuke a crazy smile. 

Daisuke eyed him uneasily and wondered how many sugared doughnuts he'd eaten for breakfast that morning.

"Guys! Don't joke like that." Daisuke gave such an adorable pout that Mimi pulled out of her drugged haze enough to give him a short hug. She then collapsed onto him, making him bend over backwards and throw him arms out in an attempt to regain his balance and not fall over. 

"Shouldn't she be okay by now?" Iori asked, frowning as Jyou carefully pulled Mimi off of Daisuke.

"Uh," Jyou said slowly, blushing lightly.

"You aren't still drugging her, are you?" Koushirou asked, looking worried.

Jyou bit his lip and looked away.

"Jyou! You were supposed to stop doing that!" Miyako cried, looking scandalized.

Daisuke covered her mouth, afraid that she was going to begin a feminist ranting session and run off into the woods again. "Yeah, Jyou, what's going on?"

Jyou sighed and looked uneasy, staring anywhere but at the four faces staring at him. He began stroking Mimi's hair, and Daisuke got the feeling that the act comforted the older man.

"I guess I'm sort of...afraid."

"Afraid? Why are you afraid?" Miyako asked, face changing emotions from outrage to concern in an alarmingly short amount of time.

"What if she wakes up and hates me for doing this to her? What if she doesn't want to marry me? What if she stops loving me or something?" Jyou shut his eyes as if in pain. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost her."

Koushirou squeezed Jyou's shoulder. "Jyou, if Mimi loved you before, then she's still going to love you when the drugs wear off."

"I guess so, but what if she doesn't?"

Daisuke sighed. "Jyou, you worry too much, you know that? You're so nervous about everything that you keep yourself from enjoying life as much as you should be. Just relax and trust that everything is going to turn out okay, and it will."

Jyou stared at him for a while, looking surprised. He shook his head slowly and heaved a sigh. 

"You're right about me. I do worry more often than I should."

Daisuke smiled comfortingly. "True love doesn't fade away, no matter what happens."

Jyou nodded to himself. "You're absolutely right, Daisuke."

Daisuke grinned. "You know what we need to do?"

"Get really, really drunk and party all night long so we can forget about all our worries and live it up?" Koushirou guessed.

Iori's eyes widened. "Of course not."

"Actually, Koushirou's absolutely right," Daisuke said, scratching his head. "I _was_ going to say get drunk and party."

"No one is getting drunk," Miyako said sternly, glaring at Daisuke and Koushirou, who both cringed. "We need to get to this town we're going to, and that's that."

"We're going, we're going," Koushirou said, rolling his eyes. "But once we get there..."

"It's party time," Daisuke finished for him, grinning.

Miyako sighed dramatically. "Men..."

"Stupid men," Mimi murmured, surprising everyone.

Miyako laughed and reached over to squeeze Mimi's hand. "Exactly."

"Hey," Jyou said, frowning at Mimi. 

"Just walk," Iori told them all, irritated. 

They continued on their way, each with lighter hearts. They didn't know that there would be people waiting for them when they got to their destination at sunset.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Are you almost finished?" the Kaiser yelled at the door, frowning and tapping his foot impatiently.

"I do not want to wear this!" the voice that the Kaiser had come to learn as "Yamato" called back. 

"Why on earth not?"

"Because-"

The door flew open and he found himself being glared at with three different pairs of eyes.

"-it's _pink_!"

"It is not pink," he protested vehemently. "Osamu used too much bleach the last time he washed the soccer uniforms. They used to be bright red."

"Well, they're pink now!" Yamato snapped.

"Red," Osamu corrected softly. He looked the three over in slight interest. "Are you quite ready to play just yet?"

Takeru narrowed his eyes, blue flashing warning signals. "If you weren't the Kaiser's favorite-"

"I do not pick favorites!"

"I am not!"

Wallace rolled his eyes. "You all through bitching at each other? Can we move out of the doorway?"

"Just because your uniform is the closest to red-"

"Hey, I'm the one who has to wear this stupid jingling jester's hat with freaking bells on it while I play soccer," Wallace said irritably.

"He's got a point," Taichi said cheekily. "It _does_ look incredibly stupid on him."

Wallace fixed him with a death glare and bit back any retorts, turning around and stalking to the castle's front doors. The Kaiser looked Wallace's backside over with a grin and followed him. Osamu hurried to keep in step with the Kaiser, frowning at the way his beloved Kaiser was checking the blonde boy out, and the reluctant threesome trudged after the rest.

"Where are we going to be playing this game, anyways?" Takeru asked Wallace.

"Damned if I know," Wallace grumbled.

"We'll be playing on my own private soccer field," the Kaiser called back haughtily. "I think the brunette will be impressed."

Taichi smiled. He had revealed to them all his secret passion for soccer earlier that day. Yamato had groaned and agreed that soccer was indeed one of Taichi's favorite pastimes. 

They walked up to where a very large soccer goal was positioned seemingly in the middle of a large expanse of flat, grassy land. 

"Where's the rest of the soccer field?" Taichi asked, raising an eyebrow. 

"The other goal is in that direction," the Kaiser said, waving to the right. 

"And the field is...?" Taichi prompted, moving his hands in the air in circular motions.

"You're standing on it."

Taichi, Yamato, and Takeru looked around themselves. Taichi gasped when he realized that the entire grassy expanse of land surrounding the castle was the soccer field. 

"You're kidding," Taichi accused, eyes wide.

"Nope," the Kaiser said, grinning like the cat who caught the canary, rocking back on his heels, arms behind his back, looking for all the world like a child who had been the first on his block to buy a remote-controlled airplane.

"I am impressed," Taichi admitted, raising both eyebrows and looking around at the soccer field once more.

"Thank you," the Kaiser said proudly.

Just then, they heard voices from somewhere behind them. They all whirled around and watched as a group of young men made its way over to the soccer field. A tall blonde boy with shoulder-length blonde hair, flipped up at the ends in a somewhat girlish way, stepped forward and grinned at the Kaiser.

"Ah, Kaiser, you have been waiting long?"

"Hello, Michael. No, I haven't," the Kaiser replied, eyes narrowing.

"Good. You are now ready to lose?" Michael asked wickedly, sneering at them.

Michael's haughtiness was even more grating on the nerves than the Kaiser's was. All six of the boys glared at Michael and the rest of the Germans.

"Let's get the game started," the Kaiser said icily. 

"Yes," Michael agreed. 

They all glared at each other for a short while more before Osamu finally reached out to grab the Kaiser's shoulder and directed him towards the center of the field, whispering close to his ear. Wallace cursed under his breath and hurried after the other two.

Taichi turned to his friends. "Ready for this?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," Yamato said glumly.

"Let's get the slaughtering over with," Takeru agreed.

They began walking towards the center of the field, moving like prisoners walking on death row.

They only hoped it would be a short game.


	11. What is it about the doughnuts that is s...

A/N: I'm tired. School is killing me. Bleh. Anyways, I've got this chapter done. One or two more and it's over...no more Land of Milk and Honey. Well, it's been fun. Especially with Koushirou. And Wallace. Somehow, I love the way their characters came out more than any of the others. Do I detect slight Daikenness in this chapter? **Gasp** How did that get in there? **Tries to look innocent** 

"Okay, who's going to be the goalie?" the Kaiser asked the five boys huddled around him.

"I'm not," Taichi said quickly, frowning at the thought of being kept away from the action during the game.

"Wallace, you're the goalie," the Kaiser said decisively.

Wallace frowned. "Why do I have-"

"I _said_ you're the goalie," the Kaiser repeated icily.

Wallace kicked at the ground. He brought a hand up to stroke the silky jester hat on his head and grumbled, "My hat would probably fall off while I was running, anyways."

"Are you almost ready to lose?" Michael snootily called over to the group.

"Be right there," the Kaiser said, baring his teeth as he smiled over at the Germans.

He turned back to the grim faces waiting for his last words.

"Okay, let's go out there and kick some German ass."

The boys gave war cries and followed their brave leader to the middle of the field, where a black-and-white ball waited for a game to start.

Kaiser and Michael faced off over the ball, eyes narrowed and fists clenched.

"Nice uniforms," Michael smirked unkindly. "The color is perfect for you."

At this, the Kaiser made a growling noise that almost put Yamato's wolf-like snarls to shame. 

"Bring it on, you prissy bastard." 

~ ~ ~ ~

"Are you sure you saw them here?!"

"Yes."

"There's a ring of black where a campfire used to be, and it doesn't look old," Jun said, pointing at the black ring on the cave floor. "Someone was here earlier."

Sora gnashed her teeth together as she frantically worked out a new plan in her head. What were they to do now? There was no way of telling which way the blue-haired man and his captive went. 

She turned to Jun.

"What now?"

Jun sighed. "I don't know. You're the leader of this operation. I just do what you tell me to do."

Sora sat down on the cave floor, crossing her arms and thinking hard. Should they go back to the town and spend another night at the inn, then try to use Ken to find Jyou again the next morning? Should they continue on and see if they discovered something new? 

She was saved from her decision-making by a crackling sound coming from her pockets.

"Sora! Sora!"

She leapt in her seat and fumbled around for the device. As she lifted it to her ear, she could make out the words, "Jyou, Mimi, and this group of people just came into town! Get back here, A. S. A. P.!"

"Thanks, Shin!" she cried as she stumbled to her feet and began running out of the cave.

Jun grabbed Ken and Hikari and began running after her, muttering, "Thank goodness," under her breath.

~ ~ ~ ~  


"It's about time," Miyako panted, collapsing onto a hard, wooden bench as Koushirou wandered over to a civilian to inquire about local hotels.

"Yeah, I was just about to pass out," Daisuke complained. "I told you fifteen miles was too much to walk."

"Well, we're the ones that had to deal with your constant complaining the whole way," Jyou pointed out, carefully seating Mimi beside him. "I seriously considered actually finding that cliff and throwing you over."

"You wouldn't," Daisuke grinned, "because you love me."

Miyako and Jyou burst into laughter. 

"What's so funny?" Koushirou asked, making his way back over to the group. He held his hands out to Iori, who was sitting on the floor, and Iori grabbed them and used them to lever himself back up onto his feet.

"I don't think they love me," Daisuke pouted, narrowing his eyes accusingly at Miyako and Jyou, who were trying not to laugh again.

"Of course they love you," Koushirou said, pulling Daisuke to his feet and resting an arm around the boy's shoulders. "We all love you. Now then, let's go find this hotel I just found out about."

They found the hotel and checked in, left their hoard of personal belongings and leftover doughnuts in the hotel room, and journeyed out into the town to find a place to eat.

En route to a restaurant that the inhabitants of the town seemed to collectively agree was the best place to eat, the group couldn't help but feel a sudden uneasiness in the air.

"Is it just me or are we being followed?" Miyako asked quietly.

"We are," Koushirou said, looking uncharacteristically somber. "Just don't look back. Keep walking."

The tension grew thicker and thicker until, at last, the stalkers made themselves known.

"Hey, Jyou," a caustic voice called out. "Where are you taking dear Mimi?"

The group spun around simultaneously and Jyou gave a surprised cry of, "Sora!"

"Yeah, me," Sora said, smiling maliciously.

Koushirou spotted the gun in the other woman's hand and put a hand out to stop Daisuke when he saw the boy move to take a step forward.

"What do you want with Jyou?" Daisuke asked defensively.

"Hush, Daisuke," Jyou said calmly. "Let me handle this." 

"Yeah, let Jyou talk," Sora said, eyes never leaving the blue-haired man's pale, drawn face. 

"Sora, there's no need to be irrational about this. Tell your friend to drop the gun and we can have a talk over dinner."

"You think this is irrational?" Sora asked incredulously. "You getting my best friend pregnant and ruining her reputation, then making it worse by kidnapping her in the middle of the night, _that's_ irrational."

"Sora, I don't know what to tell you other than how sorry I am for making you worry about your friend this much."

"My _best_ friend. Sorry just isn't going to cut it," Sora said coldly. She held her hand out to Jun, who placed the gun on her partner's palm. Sora held it out to aim at Jyou's forehead and rested her thumb on the safety catch. "You've got quite a fine price on your head, Jyou. Did you know that?"

Koushirou and Daisuke had both moved towards Jyou when Sora lifted the gun, but he held them both back with his arms and quietly told them to stay put. 

"You do realize that if you shot me Mimi would hate you, right?" Jyou asked carefully.

Jyou smiled when Sora's hand wavered slightly, a sign that he'd hit a nerve with his question. 

"She wouldn't hate me, she'd thank me," the woman replied coldheartedly, though a bit too quickly.

Jyou shook his head slowly. He held a hand out to Sora, as if in a peace-offering. 

"Just drop the gun and come have dinner with us, okay?"

"No!" Sora cried, gripping the handle of the gun so hard it turned her knuckles white.

Jyou remained silent for a while, then began walking forward. Koushirou and Daisuke called after him and Miyako hugged Mimi tightly. Jyou stopped walking when his forehead was pressing lightly against the gun barrel and his face was inches away from Sora's. Sora was surprised at how calm Jyou's eyes looked.

"Put the gun down, Sora," Jyou said quietly, face impassive.

"Why should I?" she asked shakily.

"Sora," Jyou murmured. "Don't."

Sora's hand began to shake. 

"You got her pregnant," she hissed. "She's just eighteen, just a fucking kid, and you got her pregnant."

Jyou watched as Sora lowered the gun slightly, felt it as it pressed against his nose, as she reached a hand up to wipe across her eyes. 

"A kid having a kid," Sora mumbled. "It's just wrong. Mimi's too good for that."

"I agree," Jyou said quietly. "She truly is."

"Then why would you do that?!" Sora snapped, pressing the gun hard into Jyou's forehead. He felt sure it would leave a mark, but didn't particularly care.

"I love her," Jyou replied, sounding so honest Sora found her hand wavering again. "I know I shouldn't have kidnapped her, and I probably shouldn't have even had sex with her in the first place, but all I could think of that night was how much I loved her and how we were planning on running away to get married soon."

"You were?"

Jyou nodded.

Sora looked away, lower lip trembling. "She never told me."

"We promised each other we'd keep it a secret."

"But she tells me everything," Sora said, voice trembling with emotion and an almost hidden tone of betrayal. "Or at least she did before you came into her life."

"I'm sorry," Jyou said again in his honest, soft voice.

Sora hung her head and her hand went limp, falling to her side and allowing the gun to slip from her fingers and onto the ground. Jyou lifted a hand to rest on Sora's shoulder and Sora sighed deeply, shrugging it off. 

"I truly am."

Sora nodded slowly, refusing to raise her eyes from the ground. "Yeah, I know you are."

Jun frowned darkly as she watched the entire exchange. She had the feeling Sora was going to back out on their bounty-hunting mission and she wasn't going to allow that to happen. She needed the money she would garner with the retrieval of this man's head.

"Sora, ten thousand dollars," Jun reminded her partner.

Sora lifted a hand to press against her forehead. "Shut up, Jun."

Jun clenched her teeth and glared at Jyou and the back of Sora's head. 

"Well, _some_one is going to pay me ten thousand dollars."

"I have an idea!" Koushirou shouted joyfully, startling everyone around him. 

Jun gave him an absurd look. "And just _what_ does this idea of yours entail?"

"I'll give you my job!" Koushirou replied with an easy grin.

"What?"

"I'm a police officer guy," Koushirou said, waving one hand in the air as if to illustrate or emphasize. "I go after bad guys and shoot them, too, and I probably get easier jobs than you do as a bounty hunter, with pretty much the same amount of money involved. Interested yet?"

"Go on."

"Well, I'm planning on quitting right away, so there will be one spot to fill for a police officer. My boss will gladly accept someone of your talents, since we don't get people who are already trained too often. I'll recommend you to him. He'll give you the job."

"I don't know..."

"You get plenty of free doughnut money."

"Okay, I'll try it out."

"Great!"

Koushirou and Jun shook hands, one with effortless enthusiasm and one with a small amount of reluctance. 

"Can we go have dinner now?" Daisuke asked.

"Good idea, Dai," Koushirou smiled at him. "Come on, everyone, I'll lead the way to the restaurant."

"Can we make one little stop on the way over?" Sora asked, smiling sheepishly. "We just need to pick up two of our friends."

~ ~ ~ ~

"Ken!" Daisuke cried, bounding forward and embracing the taller boy, knocking the tall, black witch's hat off of his head. 

"Daisuke," Ken greeted in return, grunting slightly at the discomfort involved in getting trapped in a bear hug while his arms were bound with rope behind his back. "Is Takeru with you?" the indigo-haired boy asked hopefully.

"No," Daisuke frowned. "He isn't with you?"

Ken shook his head sadly. They both hung their heads, staring at the floor with worried faces.

"Are you going to get your friend out of those ropes or not?" Koushirou asked Daisuke, letting the rope he'd just untied fall from around Hikari's wrists.

Daisuke jumped slightly and immediately set to work on the ropes. He soon got Ken's wrists and ankles free. 

"Thanks," Ken said softly, rubbing the red area circling his thin wrists where the rope dug into the skin. 

"Sorry about that," Sora said, still sporting a guilty grin. 

"Why did you decide to set us free?" Ken asked her, raising an elegant eyebrow.

"Long story. I'll tell you later," Daisuke promised. "Let's go get something to eat now."

"Eating sounds like a good idea," Hikari said, stretching her arms out and smiling to herself.

Daisuke went over to hug her and she hugged back, happy to see her favorite dance partner alive and well. Hikari adjusted the feather headband on her head and walked to Ken to check and see if the ropes had caused any serious damage. 

"Okay, people, let's move towards the door," Koushirou said loudly, waving his arms over his head and towards the hotel room doorway. He continued to do this until everyone was outside of the room and then followed them himself, shaking his head. "I have to do everything around here."

Jyou, having heard this, was quick to walk beside him on their way to the restaurant, eager to help his new friend out with deciphering directions. Hikari and Miyako walked on either side of Sora and Mimi, happily chatting about everything they could think of, followed by Daisuke and Ken, who spoke few words between each other but made up for it with occasional touches and significant looks, and Jun and Iori, who both walked silently, surveying their surroundings.

They reached the restaurant and huddled inside, packed close together for warmth and other, more discrete reasons that need not be mentioned aloud.

~ ~ ~ ~

The soccer game, as mentally predicted in advance by each of the six teammates, was not going very well for our dear, misfortunate heroes.

The ball was often kept trapped in the center of the field by the walls of opposing, overly competitive young men. Kaiser and Taichi breathed smoke and fire as they compiled their entire will-power into losing as gracefully and slightly as possible. Osamu, Yamato and Takeru held back slightly, fearing for their lives if they got in between the speed demons that their friends had become and the soccer ball that Michael often kept tauntingly in his possession. 

The goalies were given a break as the ball seldom reached their ends of the field, and Wallace was taking the opportunity to lie upon the floor and make shapes out of the clouds overhead. Once, Michael managed to break through the indigo and brunette barrier, charging down the field and kicking the ball into the goal so hard that Wallace hardly even caught a glimpse of the thing flying over his head. He struggled to sit up just as the ball ricocheted off of the net and bounced off of the top of his head and watched in confusion as two of his teammates screamed furiously at him to pay attention to the game. 

After that incident, Wallace made it a point to glance at the violence taking place in the center of the field as often as his bored and easily-distracted mind could manage. 

Unbeknownst to the Kaiser and his team, television cameras were carefully watching from the sidelines, capturing each and every moment on film to be televised to the globe, thanks to the generous donation Michael had offered prior to the game.


End file.
